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NUCLEAR
First Drugs for Internal Radioactive Contamination Approved
The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children
DEPLETED URANIUM BLAMED FOR CANCER CLUSTERS AMONG IRAQ WAR VETS
`Fast breeder reactor projects put on fast track'
Iran Won't Abandon Atomic Technology Drive - Khatami
Wisdom discourages a US attack against Iran
KEPCO to freeze nuclear operations
Japan Utility to Shut Down All Nuke Plants
Japan's Kansai Electric to Shut Reactors
A Divided Anniversary in Japan
Japan Begins Probe Into Worst Nuke Accident
N-plant deaths put MOX plan in doubt
US questions Japan's pacifism
Powell Links Japan UN Seat to Constitution - Report
Powell: US Would Help Underwrite N. Korean Disarmament
US Urges N. Korea to 'Make a Move' on Nuke Proposal
The threat in North Korea is real
Researching the weapons of the future: 'micro-fusion' weapons
US government to pay Exelon for nuclear fuel storage
Powerful Computer Could Link Workers
MILITARY
Rumsfeld Hails Free Elections for Afghans
Mugabe plans to starve voters into submission
Researching the weapons of the future: 'micro-fusion' weapons
The Netherlands Begins Purchase Of Lockheed Martin's
Contractors for U.N.-Iraq Aid Agree to Congressional Inquiry
U.S. Launches Major Assault in Najaf
U.S. Troops, Guerrillas Clash in Embattled Baghdad
Cease-Fire in Najaf as Truce Talks With Sadr Rebels Go On
Radical Iraqi Cleric Reportedly Injured in Fighting in Najaf
Shiite Muslims Condemn U.S. for Attacks on Holy City
Slaughter as US forces attack Najaf
US warplanes strafe Najaf as world oil prices go through the roof
Israel Weighs Giving Up Golan Heights
How a Zionist Hawk Grew His New Dovish Feathers
Russia Plans Defense Spending Increase
Senate should check doubts about Goss
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Onto the Hot Florida Sands
Former Spy Chief to Head British Version of FBI
Covert action training
A Warning From the ACLU:
CIA insider warns against reform
U.N. Security Council Votes to Extend Mandate in Iraq
US plans to cut forces overseas by 70,000
U.S. Military Helicopter Crashes in Japan
U.S. Military Helicopter Crashes on Japan Campus
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
White House Warns of Terror Strike
Charities to Contest U.S. Terrorism Screening Requirement
Official: No Evidence Attack Is Imminent
Feds Try to Reassure Arabs on Census Data
U.N. Report Cites Harassment at American Airports of Asylum Seekers
Top Mexican Law Enforcement Official Quits
Many Local Officials Now Make Inmates Pay Their Own Way
Officials Investigate a Qaeda Suspect's Shadowy Life
CACI Finds No Torture Involvement
Private Company Finds No Evidence Its Interrogators Took Part
POLITICS
CBO Report: Bush Tax Cuts Tilted to Rich
Bush Defends Moves on Sept. 11 'It's Easy to Second-Guess'
Washington Post Rethinks Its Coverage of War Debate
ENERGY
Wind Farm Projects Languish Without Federal Tax Incentive
Utd Utilities gets approaches for renewables unit
Clean energy goes to college
Iraqi oil exports decrease by half as a result of threats
OTHER
Evacuation of 1 Million Ordered in Florida
4 Lawmakers Ask For EPA Inquiry Hazardous Waste in Question
DuPont Defends Its Reporting on Teflon Ingredient
ACTIVISTS
Democracy Movement Is Stalled in Hong Kong As Legislative Election Nears,
Coalition Seeks Action on Shared Data on Arab-Americans
Protecting the Right Not to Remain Silent
State of Emergency in Maldives, Protest Broken Up
New York City Sued for Blocking Civil Rights Rally
Thousands of Iranians Protest U.S. Actions in Iraq
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- accidents and safety
First Drugs for Internal Radioactive Contamination Approved
August 13, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-13-09.asp#anchor3
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two drugs for treating certain kinds of internal radiation contamination. The FDA is approving these two drugs as part of its ongoing effort to provide the American public the best available protection against nuclear accidents and terrorist threats.
The two drugs - pentetate calcium trisodium injection (Ca-DTPA) and pentetate zinc trisodium injection (Zn-DTPA) - are "safe and effective" for treating internal contamination with plutonium, americium, or curium, the agency said.
The drugs increase the rate of elimination of these radioactive substances from the body.
They have been used for several decades as investigational drugs to treat patients in radiation contamination emergencies, but until the FDA announced its approval on Tuesday, there had been no approved drug products for the treatment of internal contamination with plutonium, americium, or curium.
Release of plutonium, americium and curium could occur from laboratory or industrial accidents; or through terrorist attacks using a radiation dispersal device, ommonly known as a "dirty bomb."
In order to encourage submission of new drug applications for these products, the FDA announced in September 2003, specific conditions and findings under which the two drugs could be approved through new drug applications.
Internal contamination with plutonium, americium, or curium can occur through a variety of routes including ingestion, inhalation, or direct contact through wounds.
The goal of treatment with Ca-DTPA and Zn-DTPA is to enhance the removal of these radioactive contaminants and therefore the risk of possible future biological effects including the development of certain cancers, which may occur years after exposure.
Side effects include breathing difficulty and loss of essential nutritional metals such as zinc.
The sponsor of Ca-DTPA and Zn-DTPA is Hameln Pharmaceuticals, GmbH, of Hameln, Germany.
-------- depleted uranium
The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children
AUGUST 13, 2004
Progressive Newswire
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0813-06.htm
Traprock Peace Center
For Immediate Release
http://www.traprockpeace.org
Sunny Miller, 413-773-7427
DEERFIELD, MA - August 13 - Veterans, military families, activists and interested individuals can now order an English version of a documentary film produced for German television by Freider Wagner and Valentin Thurn. This stunning new video, has just been released by Ochoa-Wagner Produktion in 2004 in Germany and is available through Traprock Peace Center in Deerfield, Massachusetts through the website, www.traprockpeace.org.
"The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children" exposes the use and impact of radioactive weapons during the current war against Iraq. The story is told by citizens of many nations and opens with comments by two British veterans, Kenny Duncan and Jenny Moore, describing their exposure to radioactive, so-called 'depleted uranium' (DU), weapons and the congenital abnormalities of their children. Dr. Siegwart-Horst Günther, a former colleague of Albert Schweitzer, and Tedd Weyman of teh Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) traveled to Iraq, from Germany and Canada respectively, to assess uranium contamination in Iraq.
Weyman led the investigative team that gathered samples for analysis for the UMRC http://www.umrc.net He discusses startling findings of the 2003 field investigations in Iraq. "The human and environmental samples have been found to contain depleted uranium and abnormally high levels of the artificial transuranic isotope, 236U. ... Viewers will see in the film, evidence of a new class of uranium weapons." These include "bunker defeat" bombs.
As an M.D., Dr. Günther is especially interested in the health effects that can be caused by such contamination. At a hospital in Basra, Dr. Jenan Hassan revealed an on-going health catastrophe--a ten-fold increase in cancers and a twenty-fold increase in congenital deformities. The grisly realities of the cancer ward provide an appropriate alarm that could help to stop the use of these weapons unless it can be shown they will not harm civilians for generations to come.
Dr. Duracovic, founder of the Uranium Medical Research Centre, and formerly a Colonel in the U.S. Army, says that the Canadian government has wasted a million dollars on tests provided to Canadian veterans, using faulty methodology that looked for uranium in the hair, where uranium will not accumulate.
To purchase "The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children" (VHS NTSC format) go to http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_iraq.html The purchase price is $25.00 for non-commercial, non-institutional use and includes first class mail within the US. (If you require expedited shipping, please call Traprock at 413-773-7427 as the shipping rates will vary.)
----
DEPLETED URANIUM BLAMED FOR CANCER CLUSTERS AMONG IRAQ WAR VETS
By Christopher Bollyn
August 13, 2004
American Free Press
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/cancer_epidemic_.html
A discovery by American Free Press that nearly half of the recently returned soldiers in one unit from Iraq have "malignant growths" is "critical evidence," according to experts, that depleted uranium weapons are responsible for the huge number of disabled Gulf War vets - and damage to their DNA.
A growing number of U.S. military personnel who are serving, or have served, in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan have become sick and disabled from a variety of symptoms commonly known as Gulf War Syndrome. Depleted uranium (DU) weapons have been blamed for causing many of the symptoms.
"Gulf War vets are coming down with these symptoms at twice the rate of vets from previous conflicts," said Barbara A. Goodno from the Dept. of Defense's Deployment Health Support Directorate.
A recent discovery by American Free Press that nearly half the soldiers in one returned unit have malignant growths has provided the scientific community with "critical evidence," experts say, to help understand exactly how depleted uranium affects humans - and their DNA.
One of the first published researchers of Gulf War Syndrome, Dr. András Korényi-Both told AFP that 27-28 percent of Gulf War veterans have suffered chronic health problems, more than 5 times the rate of Viet Nam vets, and 4 times the rate of Korean War vets.
Korényi-Both said his son had recently returned from Iraq, where he had been part of the initial assault from Kuwait to Baghdad. From his unit of 20 men, 8 now have "malignant growths," Korényi-Both said.
Dr. Korényi-Both is not an expert on DU, but has written extensively about how the fine desert sand blowing around Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula provides a ideal vehicle for toxins, increasing the range and effect of biological and chemical agents, such as DU, that attach themselves to the particles of sand.
Korényi-Both described how, during the 1991 Gulf War, he and others had inhaled large quantities of sand dust that could have been laden with chemical or biological agents. The sand "destroyed our immune systems," he said.
FULK'S THEORY
Marion Fulk, a former nuclear chemical physicist at Lawrence Livermore lab, is investigating how DU affects the human body. Fulk said that 8 malignancies out of 20, in 16 months, "is spectacular - and of serious concern."
The high rate of malignancies found in this unit appears to have been caused by exposure to DU weapons on the battlefield. If DU were found to be the cause, this case would be "critical evidence" of Fulk's theory on how the DU particulate affects DNA.
Such quick malignancies are caused by the particulate effect of DU, according to Fulk:
When DU (Uranium 238) decays, it transforms into two short-lived and "very hot" isotopes - Thorium 234 and Protactinium 234. As it transforms in the body, the DU particle is firing off faster and faster "bullets" into the DNA, Fulk said, or wherever it is lodged. Because uranium has a natural attraction to phosphorus, however, it is drawn to the phosphate in the DNA.
As the Uranium 238 decays, it releases alpha and beta particles with millions of electron volts. When a DU particle makes this transformation in the human body it releases "huge amounts of energy in the same location doing lots of damage very quickly," Fulk said.
Thorium 234 has a half-life of 24 days and emits a beta particle of .270 million electron volts as it transforms into Protactinium 234, which has a half-life of less than 7 hours. Protactinium then emits a beta particle of 2.19 million electron volts as it transforms into the more stable Uranium 234.
The chemical binding energy in the molecules of the human cell is less than 10 electron volts. One alpha particle from U-238 is over 4 million electron volts, which is like "nuking a cell."
Leuren Moret, a scientist who is opposed to the use of DU, compared it to sitting in front of a fire and putting a red-hot coal in your mouth. "The nuclear establishment wants us to believe that it is like sitting in front of the fire and warming the whole body evenly - and that no harm is done, but that is not the reality," she said.
We can expect to see multiple cancers in one person," Moret said. "These multiple unrelated cancers in the same individual have been reported in Yugoslavia and Iraq in families that had no history of any cancer. This is unknown in the previous studies of cancer," she said. "A new phenomenon."
The Pentagon's Goodno questioned Dr. Korényi-Both's report that 8 of 20 recently returned soldiers from one unit had experienced malignant growths. Goodno and Korényi-Both did agree, however, that Iraqi chemical and biological agents had not played a role in the 2003 invasion.
This is significant because three factors have generally been blamed for causing Gulf War Syndrome: Iraqi chemical and biological weapons, the cocktail of vaccinations given to coalition soldiers, and depleted uranium. The absence of any detectable chemical or biological agents during the 2003 invasion of Iraq reduces the number of potential factors for the malignancies in the veterans to pre-war vaccinations and DU.
Statistics published in Encyclopedia Britannica's 2003 Almanac indicate that 325,000 Gulf War vets were receiving compensation for service-related disabilities in 2000. The almanac lists 580,400 combatants in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, yet only 467 U.S. personnel were actually wounded during the conflict. The 325,000 disabled Gulf War vets are equivalent to 56 percent of the number of military personnel "serving in the theater of operation."
Furthermore, in 2000, nine years after the three-week war in Iraq had ended, the number of disabled vets from the Gulf War was increasing yearly by more than 43,000. While the number of disabled vets from previous wars is decreasing by about 35,000 per year, since the "War on Terror" began in 2001, the total number of disabled vets has grown to some 2.5 million.
MORE DISABLED VETS
"More than ever before," Brad Flohr of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs said about the total number of disabled vets. Asked if there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II, Flohr said he believed so.
Terry Jemison of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs told AFP that current statistics indicate that more than half a million veterans of the 14-year-old "Gulf War era" are now receiving disability compensation. During this period, some 7,035 soldiers are reported having been wounded in Iraq.
With 518,739 disabled "Gulf-era veterans" currently receiving disability compensation, according to Jemison, the number of veterans disabled after the war is more than 73 times the total number of wounded, in and out of combat, from the entire 14-year conflict with Iraq.
DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS
Last December, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a nuclear medicine expert who has conducted extensive research on depleted uranium, examined nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police Company of New York and found that four of the men had absorbed or inhaled depleted uranium (U-238).
Several of the men had traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, which is only produced in a nuclear reaction process. Both U-238 and U-236 are man-made forms of uranium.
"These men were almost certainly exposed to radioactive weapons on the battlefield," Durakovic said.
"Due to the current proliferation of DU weaponry, the battlefields of the future will be unlike any battlefields in history," Durakovic, then Chief of Nuclear Medicine for the Veterans Administration said after the first Gulf War, in which he served.
Since 1991, the U.S. military has used DU in munitions as penetrating rods, which destroy enemy tanks and their occupants, and as armor on U.S. tanks. When DU penetrating rods strike a hard target some of the radioactive and chemically toxic DU is vaporized into ultra-fine particles that are easily inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
According to a survey of 10,051 Gulf War veterans, conducted between 1991 and 1995 by Vic Sylvester and the Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Association, 82 percent of veterans reported having entered captured Iraqi vehicles. "This would suggest that 123,000 soldiers have been directly exposed to DU," Durakovic said.
"Since the effects of contamination by uranium cannot be directed or contained, uranium's chemical and radiological toxicity will create environments that are hostile not only to the health of enemy forces but of one's own forces as well," Durakovic said.
"Because of the chemical and radiological toxicity of DU, the small number of particles trapped in the lungs, kidneys, and bone greatly increase the risk of cancer and all other illnesses over time," Durakovic, an expert of internal contamination of radio-isotopes, said.
According to Durakovic, other symptoms associated with DU poisoning are: emotional and mental deterioration, fatigue, loss of bowel and bladder control, and numerous forms of cancer. Such symptoms are increasing showing up in Iraq's children and among Gulf War veterans and their offspring, he said.
"Although I personally served in Operation Desert Shield as Unit Commander," Durakovic said, "my expertise of internal contamination was never used because we were never informed of the intended use of DU prior to or during the war."
"The numbers are overwhelming, but the potential horrors only get worse," Robert C. Koehler of the Chicago-based Tribune Media Services wrote in his March 25 article on DU weapons, "Silent Genocide."
"DU dust does more than wreak havoc on the immune systems of those who breathe it or touch it; the substance also alters one's genetic code," Koehler wrote. "The Pentagon's response to such charges is denial, denial, denial. And the American media is its moral co-conspirator."
As AFP reported last week, the smallest particles of DU, when inhaled, are capable of moving throughout the human body, passing through cell walls and affecting the person's Master Code, according to Fulk, and the "_expression of the DNA."
Four years after the Gulf War of 1991, Life magazine published a photo-essay entitled "The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm," which focused on the numerous cases of severe birth defects that had occurred in families of veterans from that war.
Life reported, "Of the 400 sick vets who had already answered [Don Riegle's Senate Banking] committee inquiries, a startling 65 percent reported birth defects or immune-system problems in children conceived after the war."
AFP asked the Dept. of Veterans Affairs if they kept records of the birth defects occurring among the families of veterans, and was told they do not.
-------- india / pakistan
`Fast breeder reactor projects put on fast track'
M. Ramesh
Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman,
Atomic Energy Commission
Chennai, Aug. 12, 2004
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/08/13/stories/2004081301990400.htm
INDIANS are now the world masters of the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor technology - the country has 12 PHWR units running. With the technology learnt from the Fast Breeder Test Reactor project - an R&D project - the nuclear establishment is putting up a 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam. The `first pour of concrete', which is a milestone in a nuclear project's implementation, is expected to happen shortly.
Mastering PHWR and FBR are two key issues under India's nuclear rubric. The first denotes the learning of producing plutonium indigenously and the second indicates learning of how to use it. The prototype FBR at Kalpakkam will then show the world that India can produce, use its own nuclear fuel. Now the country's ambition is to double the installed nuclear power capacity in four years and reach 11,000 MW by the end of the 11th Plan.
The man at the helm of affairs today is Dr Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission. He spoke to Business Line about how the future looks. Excerpts from the interview:
How are talks with Russian on the next V VER projects progressing?
See, It is like this. We have all along taken the attitude that India's energy requirements are large. We must enhance the contribution of nuclear power. Considering that nuclear power will help offset emissions, our setting up nuclear power projects will also be good for the whole world. In that context, if we are able to add to nuclear power capacity with external inputs - money, equipment, technology, fuel - to that extent we are able to move towards the objective faster. As part of our policy, we have no problems in putting up any project with external inputs under IAEA safeguards.
I think there is also a lot of goodwill for India. Countries such as Russia and France are willing to collaborate, but they are all members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. They have their commitments to the group. They want the condition of full-scope safeguards to be met, (which means all the nuclear projects of India should be put under IAEA safeguards, not just those built with external assistance).
So, if we get external assistance, we are happy. If it does not come... .no problem. We still have our programme.
But doesn't the Kudankulam project pave the way for other projects with Russian collaboration?
The two projects of Kudankulam came on the basis of an agreement which predated this scenario. So, it was only a fulfilment of an old agreement.
What are the Russians saying now about the next projects?
They understand our position, but they don't want to be seen as going back on their international obligations.
Are we then deadlocked on this issue?
Well, at this moment, yes. But as I said, we are happy if things work out, but we are not unhappy if they don't. We have a long-term programme. Now that we have mastered the fast breeder technology, the potential of domestic uranium which was at 10,000 MW (fifty years ago) has gone up to 500,000 MW. What is working in our mind is, why not we put this on fast track. We put emphasis on fast reactors. We may not do much in first 10-20 years, but if you see the long-term horizon, a few 100,000 MW is no big deal. So our position is: we will emphasise on growth through FBRs, but if something comes from outside, it is welcome.
What does `putting on fast track' mean?
We are doing a number of things. For example, the IGCAR (Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research) developed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor project. Normally, the tendency would have been to say that since IGCAR developed, let it build it, which it can do. But we realised that Nuclear Power Corporation of India is strong in project management. So why not synergise IGCAR's technology with NPCIL's project management strength?
This configuration is showing results. Already BHAVINI (the company set up to build the 500 MW PFBR unit) is talking about doing it on a much smaller time frame. I won't be surprised if the project time is cut by one-and-a-half years.
Secondly, we are sharpening our focus on metallic fuel (Plutonium in its pure form is used as fuel, rather than as plutonium oxide or plutonium carbide). Initially, the growth of fast breeder reactors will be supported by plutonium from PHWRs. This will go on. But ultimately, we look for doubling time in FBRs. Therefore, we give much higher emphasis on metallic fuels, which have much higher breeding. We'll work on oxide fuel and changeover to metallic fuel at a point in time.
(Fast breeder reactors produce, or breed, more plutonium than they consume. A mixture of uranium and plutonium is used as fuel, but over time the reactor converts part of the uranium into plutonium. Doubling time is the time it takes to produce twice as much plutonium as it started with. A reactor which uses plutonium in its pure (metallic) form as a higher breeding ratio- it produces more plutonium faster.)
When do you think you will switch to metallic fuel?
The PFBR will certainly be oxide fuel. At the moment, the plan is that we will use oxide fuels in the next three or four fast breeder reactors and after that change over to metallic fuel systems. However, the design of these reactors can accommodate metallic fuels at any point in time. We can change over to metallic fuels at any time, but we will decide on that after an assessment, maybe 2-3 years after operating with oxide fuels.
Please give an idea about the breeding ratio when metallic fuels are used?
The doubling time with oxide fuel is in the range of 20-30 years. In the case of metallic fuels, it is around 10 years.
But do you have experience in handling metallic fuels?
Well, we certainly don't have large-scale experience, otherwise we'd have done in it PFBR itself. But we will learn, as we did in the case of using the carbide fuel (in the fast breeder test reactor). It was a decision forced on us because we did not have the enriched fuels (that a breeder reactor with oxide fuel would need). Today, the carbide fuel has crossed a burn-up of 130,000 MW and looks like it will go to 150,000 MW.
Anyway, we are not deciding on metallic fuels today.
Do you see India putting up nuclear plants abroad?
If somebody says "do it" we can always do it. But there is this barrier of politics. It operates both ways. It affects supply of technology to India as well as from India.
In this context, do you see the recent co-operation with Americans bringing results? (Last year, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission visited India. The visit of US officials opened up dialogue between the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of India and Nuclear Regulatory Commission of US for cooperation in the field of nuclear safety.)
It is good, but I do not think it (Indo-US nuclear cooperation) will go to such levels. But we must move in that direction.
What is the update on the site selection committee's report?
The report is with us. That still has a larger process to go through. We finally have to go to the government. Existing sites also have a lot of scope to accommodate additional capacity, but we've also looked at new sites.
How many projects were taken up by the committee?
It is like this. I've to reach 11,000 MW by end of the 11th Plan. Now we are at, taking into account both operating units and ongoing projects, 7,300 MW which means we have to go for something like additional 2,700 MW capacity, to be completed by the end of the 11th plan. Of them, some have to be initiated in the 10th Plan, some could be in the 11th. So we are roughly talking about four reactors, maybe 700 MW each and one AHWR (advanced heavy water reactor, a 300 MW unit, which uses thorium as fuel, put up by Bhaba Atomic Research Centre).
When will a decision be taken on the sites?
Between six months and one year.
What is happening on the AHWR project?
We're going through peer reviews. It is conceptually a different kind of reactor. We want to make sure we don't miss anything.
The way to go about that is peer review. But we are not going to rush with the project. After all, it is a demonstration project - the idea is not to make money.
-------- iran
Iran Won't Abandon Atomic Technology Drive - Khatami
August 13, 2004
REUTERS IRAN:
by Parinoosh Arami
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26562/story.htm
TEHRAN - Iran declared this week that threats to send its nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council would not make it drop its quest for peaceful nuclear technology.
The statement by President Mohammad Khatami came after U.S. officials expressed growing confidence in recent days that international resolve was hardening to deal with Iran's nuclear program and report it to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.
Iran has angered Britain, Germany and France - who have sought to broker a diplomatic solution to Tehran's nuclear case - by re-starting parts of its nuclear program and refusing to abandon efforts to master uranium enrichment.
Washington says Iran wants to enrich uranium to bomb-grade levels. Tehran says it only wants to make low-grade enriched uranium for use in nuclear power reactors.
"We don't want our case to be sent to the United Nations. We hope to resolve the issue through justifications and explanations," Khatami told reporters. "But if anyone wants to deprive us of our right (to peaceful nuclear technology) we and our nation would be ready to pay the price," he added.
Iran's claim that it has no intention of building nuclear arms was given a boost on Tuesday by reports that U.N. nuclear inspectors had traced highly-enriched uranium particles found in Iran to equipment bought from Pakistan.
This supports Iran's stance that the uranium samples, including some of bomb-grade level, were caused by contamination.
"We haven't done any enrichment in Iran. The parts were contaminated," Khatami said.
Diplomats in Tehran said Washington would probably push hard to include a trigger mechanism to send Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council in any resolution adopted by the next meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September.
But they said Washington lacks sufficient support on the IAEA's 35-member Board of Governors to push through such a measure unless U.N. inspectors provide shocking new revelations about Iran's nuclear program in their next report - something diplomats consider unlikely.
Khatami said that if Iran's case was sent to the Security Council, Tehran would lobby the five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - hard to avoid any measures being adopted against Iran.
"While we consider the veto right at the U.N. Security Council to be unfair, there are five members and we can negotiate with them," he said.
----
Wisdom discourages a US attack against Iran
By Charles V. Pena
The Lebanon Daily Star
Friday, August 13, 2004
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=7296
When President George W. Bush first named the "axis of evil" in his January 2002 State of the Union address, almost everyone knew that he was laying the groundwork for military action against Iraq. But now that the United States has invaded Iraq, the question is whether Iran will be deja vu all over again.
It's worth noting that based on the Bush administration's charges against the Iraqi regime - its development of weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism - a better case can be made against Iran than Iraq. Prior to Dec. 2002, the focus of Iran's capability to develop nuclear weapons was on the Bushehr light water reactor. But at the time it was discovered that Iran was constructing two secret nuclear fuel cycle facilities at Natanz and Arak. Natanz was believed to be a uranium enrichment plant and Arak was thought to be a heavy water reactor. Iran denied any military purposes for these facilities and agreed to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.
In August 2003, however, IAEA inspectors at Natanz found traces of highly enriched uranium, deemed questionable for non-military purposes. In February of this year, the IAEA found blueprints for building P2 gas centrifuges that are better suited for producing weapons-grade plutonium than the hundreds of P1 centrifuges that Iran already acknowledged possessing. Subsequently, actual P2 centrifuge parts were discovered. And after the IAEA passed a resolution in June 2004 deploring the fact that "Iran's co-operation has not been as full, timely and proactive as it should have been" - which sounds eerily like the lack of cooperation provided by Iraq to UN weapons inspectors as claimed by the Bush administration - Iran announced that it was going to resume centrifuge activities, which are allowed for peaceful nuclear energy, but not for making weapons. Former CIA director Robert M. Gates thinks the Iranians can "go with a weapon whenever they want to."
According to "Patterns of Global Terrorism," published by the State Department, "Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2003." Iran provided funding, safe haven, training and weapons to anti-Israeli groups, such as Lebanon's Hizbullah and the Palestinian Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
The Sept. 11 Commission Report implicated Iran in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans and wounded 372. And the commission cited "strong evidence" that Iran facilitated the transit of several Al-Qaeda members before Sept. 11, including perhaps eight or more of the hijackers. This left open the question of whether Tehran knowingly assisted Al-Qaeda operatives, but stopped short of claiming it was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush said of the alleged Iran-Al-Qaeda connection: "They're harboring Al-Qaeda leadership there. And we've asked that they be turned over to their respective countries. Secondly, they've got a nuclear weapons program that they need to dismantle. We're working with other countries to encourage them to do so. Thirdly, they've got to stop funding terrorist organizations such as Hizbullah that create great dangers in parts of the world." It could just as easily have been one of the president's pre-war statements about Iraq.
Neoconservative pundits were quick to jump on the Iran bandwagon. The same day that news stories broke about a possible Sept. 11-Iran link, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol wrote that a "serious policy" toward Iran included regime change. The American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka, David Frum (the former Bush speechwriter who coined the phrase "axis of evil") and Michael Ledeen all wrote harsh commentaries against Iran in the weeks after the Sept. 11 report was released. Columnist Charles Krauthammer asked: "Did we invade the wrong country?" Former CIA Director James Woolsey and a host of other usual suspects revived the Committee on the Present Danger, taking out full-page ads in the New York Times and the Washington Post that cited "rogue regimes" - a euphemism that surely included Iran - as part of the grave threat facing America.
So is the United States heading down the path to war with Iran?
A front-page Aug. 8 New York Times headline proclaimed: "Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms" in Iran. And a Washington Post article the next day quoted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice as saying: "We cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon." Thus, it seems that the stage has been set for a confrontation.
Many consider the notion of invading Iran absurd, especially with 140,000 American troops bogged down in Iraq. Although the Iranian military is not comparable to the US military, it is larger and better equipped than Iraqi forces that were dispatched in less than four weeks. The Iranians also have the benefit of learning from US military operations in Iraq to adapt their tactics accordingly (for example by adopting a more organized and better-equipped insurgent resistance). And unlike Iraq, Iran has not been subject to 12 years of aerial bombardment of its air defenses and other military targets. Finally, even though Iran is sandwiched between Afghanistan and Iraq, the security situation in both countries is not conducive for either to be a jumping off point for a military operation.
A ground invasion, then, seems unlikely - at least in the near term. But precision bombing of Iran's nuclear sites is certainly a possibility. After all, neither the US Air Force, with its JDAMs and laser-guided bombs, nor the US Navy, with its cruise missiles, is mired in Iraq. The risk would be how good the intelligence is on the locations of Iran's nuclear facilities. After all, Washington was surprised to discover that Iran's nuclear activities were not limited to Bushehr, so are there other unknown sites? There is also the issue of how many facilities are located in urban areas and the potential for civilian casualties even with precision weapons. For example, one of Iran's nuclear research centers is located in Tehran.
Finally, there is the question of the wisdom of military action against Iran - just as there was in Iraq. Attacking another Muslim nation after Afghanistan and Iraq would likely be interpreted as a war against Islam by the rest of the Muslim world, which would be playing right into the hands of Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamists seeking to polarize the over 1 billion Muslims around the world against the US. Like Iraq, without clear evidence that the regime in Tehran was involved in Sept. 11, or is otherwise supporting or harboring Al-Qaeda, attacking Iran would only make the terrorist threat to the US worse.
Charles V. Pena is director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute (www.cato.org), a member of the Cato Institute Special Task Force that produced the book "Exiting Iraq: Why the US Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War Against Al-Qaeda," and a terrorism analyst for MSNBC (www.msnbc.com). He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.
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KEPCO to freeze nuclear operations
Mainichi Shimbun, Japan,
Aug. 13, 2004
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20040813p2a00m0dm003000c.html
OSAKA -- Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) is set to stop operations of all its nuclear power plants for inspections following a deadly accident that occurred at its Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture last Monday, company officials said Friday.
The Osaka-based power supplier made the decision at the strong urging of the Fukui Prefectural Government.
During inspections, company technicians are expected to examine pipes at all the eight reactors at its nuclear power stations to see if they have worn thin.
The combined output of KEPCO's eight reactors in operation is 689.2 kilowatts. In order to make up for a shortage of electric power, KEPCO will reactivate two thermal power generators in Hyogo Prefecture that are not in operation.
Moreover, the company has decided to suspend its plutonium thermal use project, in which mixed oxide fuel comprising uranium and plutonium is used as fuel in nuclear power plants.
Four workers died and seven others were injured after scalding steam leaked from a ruptured pipe in a turbine room at the No. 3 reactor of the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant Monday afternoon. Subsequent inspections have proven that the pipe had worn thin.
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Japan Utility to Shut Down All Nuke Plants
August 13, 2004
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Nuclear-Accident.html
TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese utility said Friday it will temporarily shut down all of its nuclear power facilities to conduct safety checks, following a deadly accident this week at one of its plants.
Kansai Electric Power Co., Japan's second-largest utility, reached its decision a day after being ordered by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to review inspection records of cooling pipes and check for signs of erosion at its nuclear power plants. Six other Japanese utility companies were given similar orders.
Kansai Electric officials are drawing up specifics for the plan, company spokesman Hiroshi Kinami said. The utility runs a total 11 nuclear power facilities, all in western Japan.
The shutdown will not affect Kansai Electric's power supply because the utility will restart two idle thermal power units to compensate for lost capacity, company spokesman Akira Maruta said. The plants will be shut down at separate times, not all at once.
Electricity supply from nuclear reactors accounted for 65 percent of Kansai Electric's total electricity output last year. Thermal power and hydroelectric power supplied the remaining 35 percent.
The shutdown will not affect Kansai Electric's power supply because the utility will restart two idle thermal power units to compensate for lost capacity, company spokesman Akira Maruta said.
Government investigators launched a probe Friday at the plant in Mihama, 200 miles west of Tokyo, where four people were killed and seven injured when a corroded pipe exploded Monday, spewing boiling water and superheated steam on the workers.
Investigators were collecting safety records and other documents and questioning executives over Monday's accident, said Toshiyuki Kadono, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
There was no radiation leak in Monday's accident. But it has added to concerns about safety at Japan's nuclear plants, which account for 35 percent of this resource-poor country's energy supply. It also has pressured the government to reconsider plans to build 11 reactors by 2010.
Kansai Electric acknowledged Tuesday that the cooling pipe that caused the accident had not been thoroughly checked, despite a warning from inspectors last year that it posed a danger. A new inspection had been scheduled to take place on Saturday.
Government officials have said they failed to discover Kansai Electric's lax safety measures in a 2000 company report that included cooling pipe inspection plans at the Mihama plant. In the report, Kansai Electric said it routinely checked the extent of pipe erosion and found no abnormality.
Submission of inspection records became compulsory only after October 2003, when the Tokyo Electric Power Co. was criticized for a series of falsifications and cover-ups at its plants.
Japan's nuclear program has been in limbo following the recent safety cover-ups at power plants and a 1999 accident at a reprocessing plant outside Tokyo in which two workers were killed and hundreds of people exposed to radioactivity.
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Japan's Kansai Electric to Shut Reactors
August 13, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-nuclear-japan-accident.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Kansai Electric Power Co. said it would gradually shut down all of its nuclear reactors for safety checks starting from Friday, four days after the deadliest nuclear industry accident in Japanese history.
Four workers were killed on Monday when super-hot non-radioactive steam gushed from a ruptured pipe at the company's Mihama nuclear plant, 320 km (200 miles) west of Tokyo.
Japan's second-largest power utility, which has 11 reactors serving the heavily industrialized area around the city of Osaka, said no power shortages would result from the phased closures.
Kansai Electric said procedures would begin on Friday to shut down three units. The reactor where the accident occurred is already closed while two others are shut for regular maintenance.
The government of Fukui prefecture, the region where the plant is located, had asked for inspections to be conducted.
``Normally it would take about six weeks to carry out the checks,'' Kansai Electric spokesman Yonezo Tsujikura said at a news conference in Tokyo.
Kansai Electric said it would restart two oil-fired generators to help make up for lost nuclear production.
The company said the closures could cost it the equivalent of about $90 million, depending on the duration.
Other power companies said they had no plans for shut-downs in the wake of the accident, which has heightened public mistrust of Japan's scandal-prone nuclear industry.
Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said the government would do its utmost to ensure a stable supply of electricity.
Resource-poor Japan, which has 52 nuclear reactors, relies on atomic energy for over a third of its electricity needs.
Kansai Electric said on Tuesday the pipe that burst had not been inspected in 28 years and that it had not taken action even after being advised by a sub-contractor that it needed attention.
Police and officials from the national government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency were at the accident site on Friday gathering evidence that could lead to charges of negligence.
NO PLAN TO RESIGN
Media reports said Kansai Electric President Yosaku Fuji was likely to resign to take responsibility for the accident, but he told reporters: ``I don't have that in mind for now.''
The NISA, Japan's nuclear watchdog, has told power companies to check documentation to ensure inspections on pipes similar to the one that ruptured at Mihama have been carried out properly.
Similar checks have been ordered at non-nuclear power plants.
The NISA has told the companies to report back by August 18. If the records show they have neglected proper inspections plants may be required to shut down for checks.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the world's biggest privately owned electric utility, denied a report that it would restart thermal power units in case its nuclear reactors needed to be taken out of service for safety checks.
Firing up thermal plants would increase demand for oil imports at a time when prices are at record highs and Japan is having one of the hottest summers in recent years.
The Nihon Keizai newspaper said that TEPCO and Kansai would increase purchases of crude oil and fuel oil by between 10 and 20 percent to run their thermal generators.
TEPCO had to temporarily close all of its 17 reactors after revelations in 2002 that it had tampered with safety records.
The only previous fatal accident at a Japanese nuclear power plant occurred in 1967. One person died when a fire broke out at a plant in Ibaraki prefecture just north of Tokyo.
As in the latest incident, there was no radiation leak.
The worst previous accident at a nuclear facility in Japan was at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, north of Tokyo.
That took place on September 30, 1999, when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction was triggered after three poorly trained workers used buckets to mix nuclear fuel in a tub.
The resulting release of radiation killed two workers and forced the evacuation of thousands of nearby residents.
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A Divided Anniversary in Japan
By Reza Fiyouzat
Friday, August 13, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/fiyouzat08132004/
Here in Japan, we just observed the 59th anniversary of the dropping of two atomic bombs with their own names, Little Boy and Fat Man, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. Coming from a soul-broken home, the mass evil duo, in two swoops, killed about 190,000 nameless lives immediately, and continued to kill survivors to this day, with the total number of killed now standing at 237,062. To give a sense of proportion, according to official numbers in Hiroshima, a good 40 percent of the population was incinerated in temperatures reaching tens of thousands of degrees, almost instantly. To the people of that city, it must have looked the same as if a terrorist attack of ungodly proportions wiped out over one-and-a-half million residents of Los Angeles today.
The anniversary was marked by reminders of divisions internal to Japan, as well as of divisions between Japan and her neighbors. Some of the internal rifts have been repressed out of sight, while others occasionally make it out of the bag; and the external ones refuse to go away.
As the daily news from Iraq gets bleaker by the day, and as the clouds of smoke rising from Najaf grow darker by the hour, not all Japanese politicians can keep face. At the Aug. 6 Hiroshima city's official proceedings commemorating the atomic tragedy 59 years later, with Prime Minister Koizumi attending, the mayor in his speech chose to ruffle whatever feathers he could, by referring to, "The egocentric view of the United States," which, according to Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, "has reached the extreme."
The social anger, reflected only by a minority of politicians, over Koizumi's violations of the Japanese pacifist constitution, by participating in the Iraq and Afghan wars, thus refused to stay away from this occasion, which had previously been a uniting event, or at least one bereft of "politics." Even so, it is easy to fancy that Koizumi must have smiled on in his head, even as he kept his icy features expressionless.
On the "silent" front, the controversy surrounding the mandated respect for the flag and the anthem simmers on in the background, subject to the media's almost complete silence, and definitely subject to a complete lack of any critical coverage. About 250 Tokyo-district teachers, who had refused to stand up to the flag and sing the anthem at the high schools' year-end ceremonies held last March, have been ordered to pay fines, and/or take pay cuts, and attend reeducation classes.
According to Antiwar Joint Action Committee, "On June 22, 1,500 teachers and school administrators gathered in Tokyo Metropolitan City Hall. They held a rally asking for keeping the pay scales of teachers and school office workers who refuse to stand up to the Hinomaru (Rising Sun flag) and sing the Kimigayo (a song for Japanese Empire)." Present in this rally were some of the teachers who had been punished for refusing to stand up to the flag and sing the anthem.
The ongoing controversy's latest chapter led to a court battle, on July 16, when 137 teachers filed for an injunction against the forced reeducation program, which is the same as those attended by teachers with problems with sexual harassment or alcohol abuse. "While the Tokyo District Court turned down the request for the injunction saying the specifics of the program were unclear, it said, 'should an identical training program be forced repeatedly (on teachers) and their freedom of thought infringed, it may violate the Constitution or law,'" reported IPS News Agency, on Aug. 6.
Since repeated punishment is not likely to be tolerated, at least as stated formally by the court, we can hope that more teachers will file more lawsuits against the government, and most hopefully look forward to seeing more teachers joining in and vocally denouncing government's forced patriotism and becoming conscientious objectors by remaining seated and silent.
This anniversary was filled also with ghosts and ghouls of past wars visiting the unlikeliest of places. And it was in such places where things got really loud, without anybody being able to shut it up.
Soccer fans of the world know that regional cups were just concluded around the globe. In the Copa America, the younger, less experienced Brazilian team beat the older, more-practiced-together Argentines in the final, be it by penalty shoot out. On the western end of Eurasian landmass, the Greeks shocked all traditional European power houses, and became the Euro 2004 champions. In the Asian Cup, held on the eastern end of Eurasia, the feisty Middle Easterners Iran and Bahrain were stopped at the semifinals while China and Japan went on to face each other in the final.
Given that the games were hosted by China, Japan's route even under normal times would have been much bumpier. Soccer fans can be enthusiastic about the game itself to varying degrees in different countries, but when explicitly political issues get mixed in, the temperatures can rise more quickly, and with much more intensity. Since the Chinese have a long historical memory, and in order to understand the big picture of what Japanese national soccer team faced, it is instructive to glimpse back in time a little.
Seventy years ago, right around this time, Japan was ruling Manchuria, having set up an authentic local puppet in the form of resuscitated Henry Pu Yi, who had held the post of emperor until 1912, when the Manchu dynasty abdicated. Also, right about this time 70 years ago, the notorious Japanese Imperial Army's scientific special unit known as Unit 731, those pioneers in the field of "military medicine," had by now set up camp near the town of Harbin, to learn meticulously the laws of prevention by studying in detail the science of causation.
As in, causation of disease due to exposure to microorganisms and to the natural elements. As a result of this scientific curiosity, several thousand live Chinese soldiers and civilians were fed well, housed in comfortable temperatures and in antiseptic environments, so as to assure the purity of the results of the experiments about to be carried out on them. The particular effects the Japanese scientists liked to study were those caused by cholera, plague, epidemic hemorrhagic fever, and very cold weather. All subjects died of course, which was exactly the point of the experiments, since it was the entire process of dying which needed to be meticulously recorded (for a horrifying account, see Hal Gold, Unit 731 Testimony, Yenbooks, 1996).
In a few years, the Rape of Nanking would unfold, killing 300,000 people in a mere six weeks; caravans of Comfort Women would be carried off; and later still, in the later stages of WWII, there would ensue the massive bombardments of the main cities, resulting in the same utter and complete destruction and mass murder as was brought on Dresden and Tokyo by the U.S. and the Allies.
One of the cities heavily bombarded by the Japanese Imperial ferociousness was Chongqing. As history would have it, the same city was to play host to four of the games played by Japan's national soccer team in the Asian Cup 2004. One might wonder who and how many in China were smiling their lips off when deciding on, or hearing about, that.
One can easily understand why the Chinese soccer fans would be more than eager to vent their anger, in view of the fact that the Japanese government has yet to fully account for most of its atrocities. Add to that the Chinese masses' increasing subjugation to really-existing-capitalism in their own society, intensifying social tension and uncertainty for increasingly larger sections of society, especially in the areas located further inland (as is Chingqing), away from richer cities along the coast. Couple all of that with Koizumi's open rejection of "protocol" by officially and repeatedly visiting the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where you find buried convicted and executed Japanese war criminals, and we can understand the Chinese fans' multiple sources of anger.
And to vent, what better or more democratic a place than a stadium?
On more than a few occasions, the Japanese players found themselves welcomed onto the pitch by jeering crowds throwing garbage at them, while unfurling huge banners with references to Japan's wartime crimes. In all four games played by Japan's team in Chongqing, the crowds jeered and booed loudly, massively and forcefully, and without pause throughout the anthem, whose words are from an ancient poem praying for eternal life for the Japanese Emperor. One banner reportedly read, "This time we get to be the bullies!"
Even press conferences with the Japanese team's Brazilian coach, the legendary footballer, Zico, did not stay immune to politics. Chinese reporters repeatedly asked the coach why the brochures given to the Japanese team represented China and Taiwan with two different colors, implying they are different countries.
Asahi Newspaper reported that the Japanese officials were more than displeased with how the national anthem and the national team had been treated. "LDP Secretary-General Shinzo Abe met on Wednesday with He Yong, a Chinese Communist Party secretariat member, who was visiting Japan. 'The final will pit Japan against China,' Abe told He. 'I hope the government will maintain a situation in which Japanese players can play comfortably and Japanese fans can cheer them on. I want a total separation of sports and politics,'" (IHT/Asahi: Aug. 5, 2004).
As it turned out, Japan won the final, held on Saturday, Aug. 7. The Japanese fans were kept together and separated from the rest of the stadium by massive armed security. Due to the repeated official pleas, the booing and the jeering returned with less force, but the Japanese anthem was still not popular.
But when China lost 3-1, especially as the loss was laced with a controversial second goal, some of the Chinese fans just had to take it out on the local police. The Japanese fans had to be kept inside the stadium for several hours before the riot police fought off and disbursed all and declared it safe for the Japanese fans to leave. CNN online reported on Aug. 8, that, "One 35-year-old man who described himself as a patriotic educator told Reuters it was important to remind the Japanese not to forget history. 'We're seeing their old fascism starting to come back a little. For example, they are sending troops abroad,' he said."
The Japanese team won the championship for the third time, but, most likely not understanding the lesson presented, must have returned home slightly confused and perhaps a little shaken. Most of them, being jocks, even if some do moonlight as dedicated followers of fashion, must have wondered, "Why do they hate us so?"
Not to pass too quickly over the Japanese officialdom's desire for a total separation of politics and sports, it must be said that they were merely being consistent and principled. They have managed far better than that in separating politics from the Iraq war, by declaring their participation in it purely and simply as humanitarian reconstruction. One may even surmise, on examining the parliamentary system applied here, that the rulers have even separated politics from politics. A virtual one-party political bureaucratic machinery that presents itself as democracy. Stealth Dictatorship should be the proper name for it. But cracks are appearing, as the dictatorship is becoming less stealth.
To punctuate all the excitement and the controversy appropriately, on Nagasaki day, Aug. 9, a steam leak at a nuclear reactor in Mihama (Fukui prefecture) killed four workers and injured seven more, two reportedly in serious condition. "No radiation is believed to have leaked outside the facility," wrote The Japan Times the next day. The government stepped in expeditiously to tell the nation that all was fine, and reassured all of their wellbeing and safety, "Nothing to see here!"
But the most significant divisions were elsewhere. A very strange and perverted hypocrisy accompanied this anniversary, one that was exposed by the presence of peace and labor activists staging separate protest rallies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to counter the official ones, to demand of the Koizumi government to stop its support of the U.S. war against Iraq and Afghanistan, and to bring back the troops immediately. Most significantly, they also demanded that the Japanese government take action against the use of Depleted Uranium, which is deployed daily in the munitions used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. and the UK armed forces.
Leurent Moret, President of Scientists for Indigenous People, a former Livermore National Laboratory geoscientist, who has become a whistleblower and campaigner for a ban on DU, has made it clear that, "Depleted uranium is the weapon that keeps killing. The half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years, the age of the earth ... There is no way to turn it off, and there is no way to clean it up. It meets the US Government's own definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction" ("Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War," in World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, 1 July 2004).
As DU contained in munitions is vaporized upon impact, and as a result of subsequent oxidation, DU dust stays suspended in the air, in particles that are measured in microns (a thousandth of a millimeter). With rain and snow they enter the soil, and the chain of contamination continues on to crops, livestock and underground water reservoirs. As explained by Dr. Hooper, Professor emeritus at the University of Sunderland, to writer Akira Tashiro, "A particle five microns or less can lodge permanently in the lungs ... Theoretically, it would take about 24,000 years for all the particles to be completely eliminated from the body," ("Discounted Casualties," Chugoku Shimbun, 2001, p. 95). These particles may be lodged in the hilar lymph nodes, the kidneys, the nervous system, in the reproductive organs, and in the bones.
As told by Moret, regarding the first Gulf War in 1991, "Nearly 700,000 American Gulf War Veterans returned to the U.S. from a war that lasted just a few weeks. Today more than 240,000 of those soldiers are on permanent medical disability, and over 11,000 are dead-67 per cent of the babies [conceived by returning veterans] were reported to have serious illnesses or serious birth defects. They were born without eyes, ears, had missing organs, fused fingers, thyroid or other malfunctions. Depleted uranium in the semen of the soldiers internally contaminated their wives."
But, the "health problems," to use polite language, experienced by U.S. soldiers provide a window onto the horror the Iraqi population has been subjected to, starting from 1991. They do not have the option of leaving. Their country is being literally gassed by DU dust that will last forever. Moret writes, "Estimates of depleted uranium weapons used in 1991, now range from the Pentagon's admitted 325 tons, to other scientific bodies who put the figure as high as 900 tons. That would make the number of estimated cancers as high as 9,000,000, depending on the amount used in the 1991 Gulf War. In the 2003 Gulf War, estimates of 2,200 tons have been given, causing about 22,000,000 new cancer cases. Altogether the total number of cancer patients estimated using the UKAEA [United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority] data would be 25,250,000. In July of 1998, the CIA estimated the population of Iraq to be approximately 24,683,313" (ibid). Moret adds sadly, "Women in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq are afraid now to have babies, and when they do give birth, instead of asking if it is a girl or a boy, they ask 'is it normal?'"
So, the protesters defying the Koizumi government on Aug. 6th and 9th in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those exposing the lies and the murderous intent of the militarists may have been small in numbers, but they symbolize the grave rifts that exist within the Japanese society. For they bear witness to the fact that for the first time since the barbaric atomic bombings, during this year's anniversary, at the same time that the Japanese Prime Minister was dancing the ceremonial dance of pledging undying dedication to eradicating all atomic mass killers, the Japanese government was making sure that their soldiers stayed exposed to Depleted Uranium-infested air, food and water in Iraq. And that is the least of their complicities.
Reza Fiyouzat is an applied linguist and freelance writer living in Japan. Some of Fiyouzat's writings have appeared on CounterPunch and (in English and Portuguese) on the Brazilian website Revista Espaco Academico. Fiyouzat can be reached at rfaze@gol.com.
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Japan Begins Probe Into Worst Nuke Accident
August 13, 2004
REUTERS JAPAN:
Story by George Nishiyama
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26573/story.htm
TOKYO - Investigators milled around a rusty 30 cm (12 inch) steel pipe at a nuclear plant in western Japan this week trying to determine what caused it to rupture, causing the deadliest accident in Japanese nuclear industry history.
As they gathered evidence that could lead to charges of negligence, the government ordered stepped-up checks on pipes such as the one that burst at the Kansai Electric plant at Mihama, gushing super-heated steam that killed four workers.
The steam was not radioactive, but the accident further undermined public trust in the nuclear industry and analysts said it could force the government to delay its plans to build more reactors and use controversial reprocessed fuel.
The company has said the pipe had not been inspected in 28 years and nuclear safety inspectors, who arrived at the site this week, said that its 1 cm (0.4 inch) wall had been worn down to a 10th of its original thickness.
Television footage showed Kansai Electric President Yosaku Fuji on his knees apologizing profusely to the family of Hiroya Takatori, who was killed in the accident, as Takatori's father tearfully begged him to give back his 29-year old son and make sure such accidents did not happen again.
"My son's death should be the last," Minoru Takatori said.
The government's nuclear watchdog ordered utilities to go through inspection records to see if checks have been carried out on similar pipes and report back by August 18.
Officials have said plants may have to shut down if records show companies have neglected proper inspections.
"It's shocking that such a fatal accident occurred at a nuclear plant where the greatest safety precautions should be taken," the Nihon Keizai Shimbun financial daily said.
Analysts said the accident, the latest in a series of safety scandals involving nuclear facilities in Japan, is expected to stall the government's plan to use reprocessed fuel.
The government has said it wants to have 18 or 19 nuclear plants using reprocessed fuel by 2010. Currently, no commercial reactors use the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in Japan.
The MOX plutonium-uranium enriched fuel is controversial because critics fear it could be used to build nuclear weapons. Power companies plan to build five nuclear reactors by 2010, in addition to the 52 operating now.
Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said on Tuesday that the government would stick to its energy plans. "We must not undermine trust in nuclear energy policy," he said.
LACK OF PUBLIC TRUST
Many people were skeptical that the government will come up with suitable safety measures following a series of scandals.
"Japan is the same with everything. Too slow. The government is always the same with such measures," said Tokyo carpenter Ryutaro Ariga, 28. "They are useless. I really feel it."
Masayoshi Abe, a 67-year-old retired employee of a fiber-manufacturing company, said authorities should have made sure that proper inspections had taken place.
"I was amazed that they just neglected like that."
Japan aims to complete what is calls the "nuclear fuel cycle," in which spent nuclear fuel from reactors are reprocessed and used again, thereby solving the issue of having to store radioactive spent fuel. Some storage sites are nearing capacity.
"The plan has basically been sent back to the start," said Masanori Maruo, an analyst at Deutsche Securities in charge of utilities firms, referring to the use of reprocessed fuel.
He added that at best, there may be two or three reactors using MOX fuel by the government's target date of 2010.
Japan has virtually no sources of crude oil or coal and relies on nuclear power for more than 30 percent of its power needs. Most of its oil comes from the volatile Middle East.
The use of reprocessed fuel has been repeatedly delayed by incidents and mishaps at nuclear plants and the failure of the companies who run them to disclose information to the public. Kansai Electric's plans to use MOX fuel were put on hold late in 1999 when it emerged that state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) had falsified quality-control data on MOX fuel intended for use at Kansai Electric's reactors.
The revelation in 2002 that another utilities firm, Tokyo Electric Power Co Ltd, had tampered with safety documents, also forced its use of MOX fuel to be postponed.
"It's an issue of trust," said Tomohiko Iwasaki, an analyst at the Japan Research Institute, adding that electric companies must change their tendency to cover up problems and make efforts to gain the public's trust by disclosing information.
Some analysts said that given Japan's reliance on nuclear energy, it must go ahead with plans to use reprocessed fuel.
"Japan needs the technology to reprocess used fuel from an energy security point of view as well," Maruo said.
"It may take time, but electric companies must talk to the public and win back trust."
(Additional reporting by Ikuko Kao and David Dolan)
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N-plant deaths put MOX plan in doubt
Yomiuri Shimbun,
August 13, 2004
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040813wo23.htm
Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa said Thursday he would suspend the pluthermal project at Takahama Nuclear Power Plant's Nos. 3 and 4 reactors in Takahamacho, Fukui Prefecture, in light of Monday's accident at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in Mihamacho in the same prefecture.
Nishikawa also said he would postpone making any decision to approve the Japan Nuclear Cycle Institute's plan to modify the Monju fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, that was shut down after a sodium coolant leak in 1995.
The central government has inspected and approved the plant, but modifications to the reactor have to be completed before it can be restarted.
Based on an agreement between the institute and the prefectural government and other related organizations, resumption of operations at the reactor has to be approved in advance by the governor, but Nishikawa has yet to make any decision on the matter.
"The safety of nuclear power plants is taken for granted, but it's no longer something we can rely on," he said.
Regarding the pluthermal plan, Nishikawa said he could not give the green light to the plan unless thorough inspections at Mihamacho restored public trust in nuclear power.
"Kansai Electric Power Co. should have known better," he said in reference to Monday's accident.
In 1995, the previous Fukui governor gave advance approval for the pluthermal plan based on a safety agreement with KEPCO, but the plan was suspended after British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. was found to have fabricated data on plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel it shipped to Japan.
In March, Nishikawa gave his approval to the plan, which involves burning MOX fuel extracted from spent nuclear fuel at nuclear power plants, but it is likely to be postponed again due to the accident at the Mihama Nuclear Power Plant that killed four employees and injured seven others.
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US questions Japan's pacifism
Japan's sophisticated military is currently very restricted
(BBC)
Friday, 13 August, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3561378.stm
US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Japan must consider revising its pacifist constitution if it wants a permanent UN Security Council seat.
Article Nine of the constitution, drawn up under US post-war occupation, renounces the use of force in disputes.
Japan plays a role in international peacekeeping, and currently has troops in Iraq, but its constitution limits its military's powers.
However, revising Article Nine would be highly controversial in Japan.
Mr Powell told Japan's Kyodo news agency that the US supported Tokyo's quest for a permanent seat at the Security Council.
But he added that: "If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light."
He acknowledged how important Article Nine was to the Japanese people, saying: "Whether or not Article Nine should be modified or changed is absolutely and entirely up to the Japanese people to decide."
Japan says it is eligible for permanent membership as it has been involved in several peacekeeping operations, and is the second-largest contributor to the United Nations.
Mr Powell's comments reiterated remarks made by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in July.
Many Japanese are in favour of pacifism
Mr Armitage told a group of Japanese lawmakers that it would be difficult for Japan to become a permanent member of the Security Council if it could not have a greater military role in international peacekeeping.
Article Nine of Japan's post-war constitution technically forbids Japan even having a military, although this has been re-interpreted to permit forces for self-defence. Japan's government needed to pass special legislation to allow the Iraq despatch.
Both the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party are in favour of a change in the constitution, but many lawmakers and members of the public are unwilling to renounce Japan's pacifist stance.
A poll published in May in the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper showed that 78% of Japanese lawmakers were in favour of making some changes to the constitution, but 70% were against alterations to Article Nine.
Iran oil deal
In his comments on Thursday, Mr Powell also urged Japan to reconsider its oil development deal with Iran.
"It seems clear to us that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon," Mr Powell said.
He added that he hoped Japan would take this into account when judging whether Iran was a place to invest in or do business with.
Mr Powell also reiterated that the US intended to take legal action against Charles Robert Jenkins, an alleged US Army deserter now in Japan for medical treatment.
"We cannot set aside the fact that because he is a deserter we need to resolve his case at some point in the future," Mr Powell said, adding that the US would not press the case while Mr Jenkins was under medical care.
PACIFISM UNDER THREAT?
Japan's constitution renounces the use of force
This has been stretched to allow self-defence troops
1992 law allowed troops to join UN and relief work overseas
2003 law said troops could go to non-combat zones in Iraq
PM Koizumi wants to give Japan even greater powers
----
Powell Links Japan UN Seat to Constitution - Report
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-usa-japan-powell.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Japan must consider revising its pacifist constitution if it wanted to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Kyodo news agency reported on Friday.
Article Nine of Japan's postwar, U.S.-drafted constitution, renounces the right to go to war and forbids a military, although it is interpreted as permitting forces for self-defense.
``If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light,'' Kyodo quoted Powell as saying.
``But whether or not Article Nine should be modified or changed is absolutely and entirely up to the Japanese people to decide because the United States would not presume an opinion,'' he added in an interview with Japanese media in Washington on Thursday.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitagetold a lawmaker for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling party last month that Japan must revise the constitution and play a greater military role for international peace if it wanted a permanent seat on the Security Council, Japanese media have reported.
Japan has sent troops to help rebuild Iraq in a strictly non-combat role.
Both the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party are working on proposals to revise the constitution, but many ordinary citizens and lawmakers are opposed.
A Mainichi Shimbun newspaper poll published in May showed that 78 percent of Japanese lawmakers were in favor of making some changes to the document but 70 percent were against changing Article Nine.
JENKINS, AZADEGAN
Powell reiterated that the United States intended to take legal action against Charles Robert Jenkins, a U.S. Army sergeant accused of deserting to North Korea in 1965 and now in Japan for medical treatment.
He is married to a Japanese woman who was abducted to North Korea but returned home two years ago.
The United States has said it wants him to face court-martial but has held off seeking custody while he is in hospital.
``We are working with the Japanese government and Mr. Jenkins is in touch with various people as to how he might deal with this matter in a legal sense,'' Powell said.
``Right now, he is under medical care and that comes first. We are not pressing on our case,'' he added.
Powell wanted Japan to think again about a decision to invest in a $2 billion project to tap Iran's Azadegan oil field, saying he hoped Japan would take into account Iran's suspected nuclear plans.
He said it ``seems clear to us that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon'' and accused Iran of resuming construction of centrifuges for its uranium enrichment program, Kyodo said.
``I would hope that the Japanese government, Japanese businesses, would take this into account as they make judgments as to whether this is the place that one should be making investments in or doing this kind of energy business with,'' Powell was quoted as saying.
Japanese state-backed oil company INPEX Corp sealed a deal in February to develop the Iranian field.
Iran says its nuclear programs are solely for generating electricity and not for building nuclear weapons.
-------- korea
Powell: US Would Help Underwrite N. Korean Disarmament
David Gollust
State Department
13 Aug 2004
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=53DA1E48-5104-499A-B0563D327A7ABD95
Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United States would help pay for the removal and destruction of North Korea's nuclear facilities as part of a deal for an "irreversible" end to Pyongyang's weapons program. Mr. Powell says there has been progress in six-party talks on the issue.
The costs associated with an end to the North Korean nuclear program would be considerable. And Mr. Powell is making it clear that, in the context of a disarmament deal, the United States and other parties to the Chinese-sponsored, six-party talks would be prepared to help underwrite the task.
In an interview with reporters from Japan and the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia, the text of which was released Friday, Mr. Powell pointed to the example of Libya, which has received U.S. disarmament help since it renounced weapons-of-mass-destruction late last year.
But Mr. Powell cautioned that aid to North Korea could only come in the context of a disarmament deal that is "totally irreversible" and includes Pyongyang's plutonium-based weapons efforts, as well as the enriched uranium program the United States insists North Korea has, but North Korea refuses to acknowledge.
The Secretary, who reiterated U.S. peaceful intentions toward North Korea, said he thinks there has been progress in the six-party talks, which are expected to resume late next month. However, he said he could not predict if an agreement can be wrapped up within a year.
On other issues in the wide-ranging interview, Mr. Powell said Japan must consider revising pacifist elements of its post-WWII constitution, if it wants to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
He also said he hoped that, as Japan examines its business relations with Iran, it would consider that Tehran "is not behaving in a responsible manner" with the international community in regard to its nuclear program, which the United States says has a secret weapons component.
Mr. Powell expressed disappointment that the Burmese government's "road map" for political reform, issued a year ago, has not led to pluralistic democracy.
He said as long as Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are denied the opportunity to take part in the country's political life, the United States will continue to speak out strongly and look for new "levers" by which to pressure the regime.
Mr. Powell also said under questioning that Muslim Uighurs from China, detained at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, would not be sent back to China on their release.
But he said finding places of refuge for the Uighurs, believed to number about a dozen, "is not a simple matter" and that the United States is considering several candidate countries.
----
US Urges N. Korea to 'Make a Move' on Nuke Proposal
August 13, 2004
REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-usa.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States wants North Korea to respond to its June proposal for ending the Communist nation's suspected nuclear arms program after a rare meeting this week indicated talks progress remains glacial.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington showed flexibility by allowing aid incentives in its most concrete proposal at the last round of six-party talks and would go no farther until North Korea replied.
``The burden, frankly, in my judgment, is on North Korea to make a move,'' Powell told Japanese reporters in an interview. The transcript was released on Friday.
There was some speculation a North Korean negotiator, Ri Gun, would make a counter-proposal at a seminar in New York earlier this week, but U.S. officials said there was no breakthrough in a trip that was little more than symbolic.
``Ri Gun came with no authority to talk,'' a Bush administration official, who asked not to be named, said. ``He just reiterated standard North Korean policies.''
The National Committee on American Foreign Policy, invited Ri, as it did almost a year ago, for what the private think tank billed as informal talks.
A U.S. negotiator and representatives of the other nations involved in the six-nation formal talks -- South Korea, China, Japan and Russia -- also attended. However, there were no separate meetings with the North Korean, diplomats said.
Powell said there was ``a brief exchange'' between Ri and the U.S. official ``as one would have with any other attendee at such a conference but there was no substantive discussions.''
``All parties sought to narrow their differences and find common ground,'' an event organizer, Donald Zagoria, said. Asked if any common ground had been found, he answered, ``the urgent need to find a peaceful solution to the North Korean issue.''
Critics of the talks say neither side will negotiate seriously until after the U.S. presidential election, and such visits have sought to create the impression of progress rather than to make a breakthrough.
Despite several rounds of negotiations, the sides have narrowed few differences since the nuclear crisis erupted in 2002, when the United States said North Korea admitted to pursuing a covert arms program.
----
The threat in North Korea is real
By Daniel Poneman,
Friday, August 13, 2004
Special to The Baltimore Sun
http://www.decaturdailydemocrat.com/articles/2004/08/13/news/opinion/editorial02.txt
Taken together, the 9/11 commission report and the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report on Iraq teach us how incomplete intelligence can lead us to exaggerate some threats and miss others. This suggests that where the mists of uncertainty part to reveal an unambiguous threat to our national security, we must confront it squarely. We now face such an unambiguous threat from North Korea.
How do we know? Because we have lost track of five to six atomic bombs' worth of plutonium there.
In the 1990s, American technicians went to North Korea and supervised the recanning of 8,000 plutonium-laden spent fuel rods. Then the International Atomic Energy Agency sealed the Yongbyon facility containing the rods, installed cameras and kept on-site inspectors there to monitor those rods.
When North Korea bolted the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty last year, it kicked out the inspectors, turned off the cameras and broke the seals. No one outside North Korea knows where the rods and their plutonium are now. Many assume the plutonium has been separated from the spent fuel, but we do not know. We also know that North Korea has restarted the reactor that produced that plutonium and is therefore producing still more plutonium for more bombs.
We know that six plutonium bombs could wreak devastation beyond that ever yet caused by man. So why aren't we, as a nation, trying to find and secure that plutonium - which may even have been converted into weapons - as rapidly as possible?
One reason is that we think that North Korea is developing a program to produce highly enriched uranium, the other major form of atomic bomb. North Korea has, by turns, coyly asserted and denied this program. U.S. officials claim they found evidence in 2002 of an enrichment program in North Korea. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani Typhoid Mary of nuclear proliferation, could have provided the centrifuge blueprints and equipment. We hope that Pakistani authorities are obtaining all relevant information from Khan and sharing it with the appropriate authorities.
But consider what we don't know about the North Koreans' enrichment program: its location, how much centrifuge equipment they may possess, how many machines they have already built, what designs are being used, how capable their technicians are at mastering the difficult engineering of this demanding technology, whether North Korea has the uranium hexafluoride gas to feed into the centrifuges. Critically, we do not know how soon North Korea could produce bomb-grade highly enriched uranium, although published reports have not suggested that that day is imminent.
Now there is no question that the United States and other nations, working with the IAEA, should bend every effort to answer these questions. If an enrichment program exists, it must be found, declared, secured and verifiably dismantled.
It is also clear that U.S. policy is focused on the right goal: North Korea must disclose, safeguard and dismantle all of its nuclear fuel cycle, including any plutonium and enrichment facilities that may exist.
But the United States is taking the position that it will not cut a deal on the plutonium that we know North Korea possesses unless Pyongyang ``comes clean'' on its enrichment program. This holds our ability to defuse Pyongyang's plutonium time-bomb hostage to a mystery we may not unravel for some time.
What to do? Rather than let what we think about uranium hobble what we do about plutonium, we should separate these two threats for negotiating purposes into separate tracks that acknowledge their differences in terms of clarity and urgency.
That would allow us to work simultaneously toward two urgent goals: arresting the plutonium threat while getting to the bottom of Pyongyang's uranium enrichment program. The United States would work with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to provide some benefits to Pyongyang in exchange for shutting its plutonium-producing reactor while securing the missing plutonium and shipping it immediately out of North Korea.
Under this strategy, the toughest tactical decision would be to figure out how many carrots and sticks to wield to eliminate the near-term, known plutonium threat, while leaving enough in reserve to eliminate the longer-term, unknown uranium threat.
If, instead, we defer tackling the plutonium threat while waiting for the North Koreans to admit to the world that they have been lying about their uranium program, the odds are that we will confront tragedy before we receive truth.
Poneman served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; he is co-author of ``Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis.''
-------- u.s. nuclear weapons
Researching the weapons of the future: 'micro-fusion' weapons
August 13, 2004
Janes.com
By Andy Oppenheimer
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jcbw/jcbw040813_1_n.shtml
Advances in nanotechnology, genetics and nuclear isomers are permitting the production of a new generation of weapons intended to maintain future US military superiority and deter 'rogue states' and terrorists.
Forced to consider how to deter threats to its security from 'rogue states', terrorist organisations and other groups undeterred by its massive nuclear stockpile, the US is now considering the development of a new generation of weapons.
Most notably, the Bush administration is in the process of trying to develop a new generation of 'low-yield' nuclear weapons with yields at or below five kilotons. Development of these weapons would give the US the means to destroy hardened bunkers containing 'high value targets' and possibly chemical and biological weapons.
But what lies beyond the 'mini-nuke'? What kind of arsenals will the US have in the next five to 25 years? An array of futuristic-sounding weapons is moving beyond the imaginations of scientists and military officials into the arena of government and commercial research laboratories. The consequences of the uses of these weapons are yet to be examined fully.
Nanotechnology (NT), the science of designing microscopic structures in which materials are machined and controlled atom by atom, has the potential to produce further miniaturisation of weapons. The ability to build large, complex devices to atomic precision using molecular machine systems was first recognised by US physicist Richard Feynman more than 40 years ago. Assembler-based NT has implications far beyond the Pentagon's current vision of a 'revolution in military affairs', although its applications to advanced weaponry are certainly fertile ground for fantasy. Proponents of 'micro-fusion' nuclear weapons insist that they are the only types of warheads capable of retaining relatively high yields of energy through the process of miniaturisation.
The impetus for creating these systems arose from the need to develop extremely rugged and safe arming and triggering mechanisms for smaller nuclear weapons such as atomic artillery shells. In such warheads, the nuclear explosive and its trigger undergo extreme acceleration upon their use. This forced weapons designers to make the trigger's crucial components as small as possible, for smaller electromechanical systems are more enduring and resistant to exogenous stresses. Controlled microexplosions could be used in weapons if suitable compact triggers were developed.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
US government to pay Exelon for nuclear fuel storage
August 13, 2004
REUTERS USA:
Story by Deepa Babington
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26572/story.htm
NEW YORK - The U.S. government could pay Exelon Corp. (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) as much as $300 million for failing to take control of waste from the company's nuclear stations under a past deadline and to reimburse costs for storing that waste, the No. 1 U.S. nuclear plant operator said.
The flap between two sides stems from the federal government's previous commitment to take title to spent fuel from commercial nuclear plants by early 1998. The U.S. government faces 66 separate pending lawsuits from utilities for failing to meet that timeline.
Under the settlement - which resolves all pending spent-fuel litigation brought against the federal government by Exelon and its subsidiaries - the company will receive $80 million immediately for storage costs already incurred.
Additional amounts will be reimbursed annually for future costs. Exelon said it could eventually receive about $300 million in total reimbursements if a national repository for spent fuel opens by 2010 and the Department of Energy begins accepting spent nuclear fuel there.
The settlement could mean an additional 3 cents per share roughly in earnings each year assuming the company receives the remaining $220 million over six years, said Jefferies & Co. analyst Paul Fremont.
"I don't think it's a windfall," said Fremont. But it "provides the company with additional cash and additional earnings."
Spent fuel from the nation's nuclear plants is piling up with more than 50,000 tons stored at interim locations in 39 states, within 75 miles of 161 million people. The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear energy industry, says dozens of nuclear power plants are running out of storage capacity in their used fuel pools.
"The agreement means that taxpayers in every state - including those who do not receive electricity supplies from nuclear power plants - are now officially paying the cost of the federal government's failure to meet its obligations," the group said in a statement.
The settlement is likely to put pressure on the government to step up its efforts to provide for permanent storage of that waste, said Fremont.
"On the one hand, you've got a potential financial penalty if they don't," said Fremont. "On the other, you have the fact that permanent storage is as difficult a political issue today as it was when this was originally conceived."
Based in Chicago, Exelon has the largest number of nuclear power facilities in the country with 17 reactors, 10 stations and more than 17,000 megawatts of power production capacity.
The company noted, however, that the settlement cannot be considered a substitute for permanent used fuel disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a nuclear waste storage facility planned in the desert about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Slated to open in 2010, the underground facility would hold 77,000 tons of waste from the nation's 103 nuclear power plants for 10,000 years. (Additional Reporting by Carolyn Koo in New York and Chris Baltimore in Washington)
-------- idaho
Powerful Computer Could Link Workers
August 13, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Super-Computer.html
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) -- A new supercomputer could join workers at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory with colleagues in France, Chile and across the United States while keeping sensitive information secure.
The system could reach speeds of up to 1,500 gigaflops, making it one of the 150 fastest supercomputers in the world, officials said. It was designed by Sun Microsystems and the technology experts at the laboratory.
``It will allow us to do calculations we would not be able to do otherwise,'' said Paul Kearns, the laboratory's director for science.
Calculations and models that formerly took researchers a year will only take days to complete using the new system, officials said. Researchers will use the supercomputer to design the next generation of nuclear power plants, research the cause of mad cow disease and develop microbes that can eat heavy metals to use cleaning up contaminated sites.
Eric Greenwade, the laboratory's chief information systems designer, said the faster speed does not necessarily mean that there will be any down time for the system.
``The reality is, when you increase the resources for a researcher, they increase their problems and the size of their models,'' Greenwade said.
Those outside the laboratory must be approved by the U.S. Department of Energy to use the system. The computer can isolate information, essentially giving each user its own part of the system to control, Greenwade said.
Sun Microsystems is leasing the system -- made up of 230 servers wired together -- to the laboratory for three years, at a cost of $1.97 million. The system is expected to be running by the end of September.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Rumsfeld Hails Free Elections for Afghans
August 13, 2004
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press Writer
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/U/US_AFGHAN?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Halfway through the deadliest year yet for American soldiers in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pointed optimistically Wednesday to a revival in commerce and rising registration for October's election as proof the country is making progress.
Despite a continued Taliban insurgency, growing election violence and a booming opium trade, the Pentagon chief on a daylong visit said: "Each time I come I notice the amazing progress that's being made - the energy on the streets, the new stores, kiosks, cars."
Rumsfeld also noted that the United Nations has said more than 9 million people have registered to vote in the country's presidential election this October, the first vote since the fall of the Taliban government.
But Afghanistan's interim president, Hamid Karzai, faced questions during a news conference with Rumsfeld about the legitimacy of that election in light of reports that many voters have registered multiple times and may try to vote more than once. "This is an exercise in democracy. Let them exercise it twice!" Karzai said. "We cannot be perfect."
Karzai later hastened to add that voters will have their hands marked in ink that will be difficult to remove in an effort to prevent them from voting more than once.
The upcoming election also has been marred by the country's continuing violence - much of it from Taliban-led rebels. Karzai noted that 12 election workers had been killed in recent months.
In addition, 23 American soldiers have been killed in combat in the country so far this year - making 2004 the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. This has undermined claims by American and Afghan officials that militants are on the defensive and security is improving.
In all, 58 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action since the United States entered Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. Counting accidents, the U.S. death toll since 2001 is at 130.
Violence has intensified with the approach of the election. Afghan troops and U.S. warplanes killed as many as 70 militants near the Pakistani border on Aug. 1, officials said - one of the biggest clashes in recent years.
Karzai, who faces 17 opponents in October, clearly is the American favorite although Rumsfeld and other officials have avoided endorsing him and said the U.S. government would work with whomever Afghan voters choose.
Joining Karzai at a news conference shortly after arriving, the U.S. defense secretary said, "Your leadership team is showing great courage in your efforts" to stabilize the country.
Rumsfeld called the registration of 9 million voters "a very vivid demonstration of the Afghan people's determination to make democracy work." The United States estimates Afghanistan has 28.5 million citizens, half of whom are under the voting age of 18.
Rumsfeld also traveled to Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan by military helicopter to view reconstruction and counternarcotics efforts.
Joined by General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Rumsfeld met with a team of Afghan soldiers trained to hunt drug smugglers. Their commander, Brig. Ahmad Khalid, said the group had taken out more than a dozen drug labs. The region around Jalalabad is prime country for growing poppy plants, which can be used to make opium.
Rumsfeld said U.S.-led coalition forces are preparing a coordinated effort to attack the narcotics, although he offered few specifics.
American military commanders in Afghanistan have said previously they don't have enough troops to go after the poppy trade and still hunt Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts.
United Nations surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three quarters of the world's opium last year, and the trade brought in $2.3 billion, more than half of the nation's gross domestic product. New surveys suggest even more has been planted this year.
-------- africa
Mugabe plans to starve voters into submission, says rights group Malnutrition deaths disprove boasts of bumper crops
August 13, 2004
The Guardian
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,1282132,00.html
The government of Zimbabwe may be planning to use food scarcity as a political weapon in next year's elections, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
Millions of Zimbabweans are in danger of famine because the president, Robert Mugabe, has refused to ask for international aid, and there is increasing evidence to contradict his government's claim that the country has sufficient food.
In the opposition stronghold of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, 125 people have died from malnutrition this year, it was reported this week.
The toll in rural areas is unknown as there are no health statistics unavailable.
Human Rights Watch said it feared that food under government control would be restricted to those who supported Mr Mugabe's party, Zanu-PF.
By law maize must be transported and distributed by the state Grain Marketing Board.
Rural people have to go to its local offices to buy subsidised maize, and the board controls how much is sold in the cities.
"In recent years the grain board has been widely accused of discriminating against supporters of the political opposition," HRW's report said.
Many witnesses say grain board officials turn away those who do not have a Zanu-PF card.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, has accused Mr Mugabe of wanting to use food relief as a weapon to win the polls.
"They are planning to starve people into submission," he said in London last month.
HRW's paper says the government must make a full disclosure of the food stocks. By withholding vital information it is "gambling with its citizens' access to food".
Earlier this week the Zimbabwean government said it was looking forward to "an above-average national harvest".
But farm output has plummeted as a result of Mr Mugabe's chaotic and often violent land seizures and failure to provide poor black farmers with enough seed and fertiliser.
For the past three years the country has depended on international food aid.
In May the government boasted that farmers had produced a bumper crop of 2.4m tonnes of the staple grain, maize. Mr Mugabe said there would be no need for international food aid. "We don't want to choke on your food," he told an interviewer.
Experts, including the UN world food programme, dismissed the estimate as a fantasy, but the government ordered the WFP to stop its crop survey, saving its widely disputed figures from being factually contradicted.
The WFP has been forced to dismantle its operations in Zimbabwe and dismiss nearly half its 230 staff.
Virtually all independent agricultural experts reject Mr Mugabe's figures.
"Anyone driving through Zimbabwe can see that there are not many fields with healthy maize crops," a local grain specialist said. "Areas that used to produce large maize and wheat crops are now lying fallow."
An estimated 4.8 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people will need food assistance in the coming year, the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee says.
To avert a famine last year, the WFP provided food to nearly six million people at the height of the country's lean season.
It is currently feeding about 650,000 a month.
The privately owned Standard newspaper questioned assurances that Zimbabwe had plenty of food when it reported this week that 125 people had died of malnutrition-related causes in Bulawayo. Twenty-one of them were children under five.
The mayor of Bulawayo, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, confirmed the number, saying it came from city records.
He said it was the responsibility of Mr Mugabe's government to feed the people. "This definitely needs a government approach if we are to save lives," he told the Standard.
The government reacted with fury, threatening action against the mayor of Bulawayo and other city officials, and legal action against the newspaper.
"We are sure of our story," the Standard's editor, Bornwell Chakaodza, told the Guardian yesterday.
John Makumbe, a civic leader and political scientist, said: "The truth is that there is not enough food in Zimbabwe and the government is hiding that.
"I have just come back from my home area of Buhera and I can tell you that there is very little food there. And in Matabeleland people are literally starving. People are desperate for humanitarian assistance."
Mr Makumbe said the government intended to use food to lure political support.
"The public will have to toe the Zanu-PF line in order to get any food."
-------- arms
Researching the weapons of the future: 'micro-fusion' weapons
August 13, 2004
Janes.com
By Andy Oppenheimer
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jcbw/jcbw040813_1_n.shtml
Advances in nanotechnology, genetics and nuclear isomers are permitting the production of a new generation of weapons intended to maintain future US military superiority and deter 'rogue states' and terrorists.
Forced to consider how to deter threats to its security from 'rogue states', terrorist organisations and other groups undeterred by its massive nuclear stockpile, the US is now considering the development of a new generation of weapons.
Most notably, the Bush administration is in the process of trying to develop a new generation of 'low-yield' nuclear weapons with yields at or below five kilotons. Development of these weapons would give the US the means to destroy hardened bunkers containing 'high value targets' and possibly chemical and biological weapons.
But what lies beyond the 'mini-nuke'? What kind of arsenals will the US have in the next five to 25 years? An array of futuristic-sounding weapons is moving beyond the imaginations of scientists and military officials into the arena of government and commercial research laboratories. The consequences of the uses of these weapons are yet to be examined fully.
Nanotechnology (NT), the science of designing microscopic structures in which materials are machined and controlled atom by atom, has the potential to produce further miniaturisation of weapons. The ability to build large, complex devices to atomic precision using molecular machine systems was first recognised by US physicist Richard Feynman more than 40 years ago. Assembler-based NT has implications far beyond the Pentagon's current vision of a 'revolution in military affairs', although its applications to advanced weaponry are certainly fertile ground for fantasy. Proponents of 'micro-fusion' nuclear weapons insist that they are the only types of warheads capable of retaining relatively high yields of energy through the process of miniaturisation.
The impetus for creating these systems arose from the need to develop extremely rugged and safe arming and triggering mechanisms for smaller nuclear weapons such as atomic artillery shells. In such warheads, the nuclear explosive and its trigger undergo extreme acceleration upon their use. This forced weapons designers to make the trigger's crucial components as small as possible, for smaller electromechanical systems are more enduring and resistant to exogenous stresses. Controlled microexplosions could be used in weapons if suitable compact triggers were developed.
369 of 1,172 words [End of non-subscriber extract.]
----
The Netherlands Begins Purchase Of Lockheed Martin's PAC-3 Missile Equipment
Aug 13, 2004
Dallas TX (SPX)
http://www.spacewar.com/news/2004/milplex-081304-1517-47.html
Lockheed Martin has received a $33.9 million foreign military sales contract for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile-related support equipment for The Netherlands.
A follow-on contract for PAC-3 Missiles is anticipated by the end of the year. This is the first international sale of PAC-3 Missile-related equipment.
The contract, awarded by the U.S. Army Aviation & Missile Command in Huntsville, AL, calls for Lockheed Martin to produce PAC-3 Missile Segment ground equipment, including Enhanced Launcher Electronics Systems (ELES) and Fire Solution Computers, for The Netherlands.
This equipment will enable The Netherlands' existing Patriot ground equipment to accept the new PAC-3 Missiles.
"We're extremely pleased The Netherlands has moved forward with its purchase of the PAC-3 Missile system, and will soon be obtaining their first PAC-3 interceptors," said Steve Graham, vice president - PAC-3 Missile program for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.
"In those defining moments on the battlefield, the PAC-3 Missiles worked as designed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and we're confident in its ability to defeat the threats facing U.S. and allied forces today and in the future."
The 'hit-to-kill' PAC-3 Missile is the world's most advanced, capable and powerful theater air defense missile.
It defeats the entire threat to the Patriot Air Defense System: tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs) carrying weapons of mass destruction, advanced cruise missiles and aircraft.
PAC-3 Missiles significantly increase the Patriot system's firepower, since 16 PAC- 3s load-out on a Patriot launcher, compared with four of the older Patriot PAC-2 missiles.
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control is prime contractor on the PAC-3 Missile Segment upgrade to the Patriot air defense system. The PAC-3 Missile is a highly agile hit-to-kill interceptor.
The rest of the Missile Segment is made up of the PAC-3 Missile canisters (in four packs), a Fire Solution Computer and an Enhanced Launcher Electronics System.
These elements have been integrated into the Patriot system, a high to medium altitude, long-range air defense missile system providing air defense of ground combat forces and high-value assets.
The PAC-3 Missile has also been selected as the primary interceptor for the multi-national Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).
Managed by the NATO MEADS Management Agency (NAMEADSMA), MEADS is a model transatlantic development program focused on the next generation of air and missile defense.
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Contractors for U.N.-Iraq Aid Agree to Congressional Inquiry
August 13, 2004
By JUDITH MILLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/politics/13annan.html?pagewanted=all
Two contractors for the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq have agreed to cooperate with congressional panels investigating allegations that the government of Saddam Hussein had siphoned billions of dollars from it, company and Congressional officials said Thursday.
Congressional investigators said that Cotecna Inspection SA, the Switzerland-based company the United Nations hired in 1999 to monitor and authenticate goods shipped to Iraq, and Saybolt International BV, the Dutch company that monitored oil exports from Iraq, have arranged to cooperate with House and Senate committees examining accusations of corruption in what was the United Nations' largest relief program.
Critics have accused both companies of lax monitoring, but allegations have swirled around Cotecna, which once employed the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's son, Kojo Annan.
In a statement issued from its Geneva headquarters, Cotecna defended its performance and said it "welcomes the opportunity" to explain what it called its "limited, technical role" in the program. The statement also said that Kojo Annan, who had been a full-time employee at Cotecna before it was selected for the job, was still retained as a consultant when the company applied for the contract.
In its statement, however, Cotecna said that Kojo Annan's activities concerned only Nigeria and Ghana, and that he was "not involved in any of Cotecna's operations involving the United Nations or Iraq."
The statement said the company had been "constrained in its ability to respond effectively to some of the allegations and inferences made against it" or to cooperate fully with House and Senate panels investigating the program because of the "strict confidentiality restrictions" placed on it by the United Nations.
Seth Goldschlager, a spokesman for Cotecna in Paris, said that to enable the company to cooperate, the House Committee on Government Reform had subpoenaed it on Aug. 4. He said Cotecna had also provided information to the Senate Permanent Investigations subcommittee, which is also investigating the program. But it had done so without a subpoena since the information requested was not covered by the United Nations restrictions.
Tom Costa, a staff member for the House Government Reform subcommittee, which is conducting one of the inquiries, confirmed that Cotecna was cooperating voluntarily.
He also said that Representative Christopher Shays, the Connecticut Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee and is now leading a Congressional delegation to the Middle East, had discussed the oil-for-food program with officials in Iraq and Jordan, and had seen "thousands and thousands of documents" from the program that are being stored in Baghdad by the interim government
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U.S. Launches Major Assault in Najaf
Militia Targeted; Radical Cleric Sadr Injured in Clash
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61166-2004Aug12?language=printer
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 13 -- U.S. forces launched a multi-pronged offensive Thursday to drive a stubborn militia from the holiest city in Shiite Islam, as heavy fighting broke out in other cities in southern Iraq and the country's highest-ranking Shiite cleric called for an end to combat.
Shortly before dawn, the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment rumbled into Najaf, columns of M1-A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles throwing up an armored cordon around the oldest section of the city. The encircled area extended in a roughly one-mile radius from the shrine of Imam Ali, which militiamen have occupied and used as a base for firing mortars. Grainy gunsight images displayed by Iraqi officials at a Baghdad news conference showed the insurgents' artillery teams inside the shrine complex.
Early Friday, Moqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who leads the militia, was apparently injured at the shrine during fighting with U.S.-led forces.
Ahmed Shaibani, a Sadr spokesman in Najaf, confirmed that the cleric had been injured in the chest and the leg but said the wounds were not life-threatening.
"If Moqtada Sadr is martyred, there will be no negotiations with the government and there will be a lake of blood in Iraq," Abdul Hadi Darraji, an aide to Sadr, told the al-Arabiya satellite television network. Al-Arabiya reported that Sadr was injured by shrapnel.
Also on Friday morning, U.S. commanders in Najaf reported restrictive new engagement rules in the city and speculated that political negotiation to end the standoff has grown more serious. "There are representatives of the Iraqi federal government in Najaf," Marine Maj. David Holahan said. "What they're doing and who they're talking to I have no idea."
Army Maj. Doug Ollivant said, "We now have very restrictive engagement criteria this morning and there may be some kind of political process going."
On Thursday, Marines raided three buildings adjacent to Sadr's home and launched a nighttime operation elsewhere in the area, accompanied by Iraqi commandos and U.S. Special Forces.
The military offensive appeared to be deliberately paced, unfolding in stages that would allow Iraq's political leadership to calibrate the pressure placed on insurgents who have controlled much of the city for at least the last week. A Marine spokesman, Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson, said combat had been "sporadic, and there have been no major engagements" with the militiamen.
In Baghdad, Interior Minister Falah Naqib said the country's interim government "had no other solution" than to authorize the military operation. Naqib said efforts to broker a lasting peace deal with Sadr and involve his followers in Iraq's interim government had failed.
"Previously, we had tried to solve all our problems politically and peacefully," Naqib said. "What is happening at this stage is not to the benefit of anyone."
Reports from other cities in Iraq's predominantly Shiite south suggested a reprise of an uprising in April, when Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, shocked the U.S.-led occupation authority and foreign troops by briefly taking power in several cities.
The fighting Thursday was most intense in Kufa, six miles east of Najaf. U.S. Special Forces called in an AC-130 gunship to destroy a Mahdi Army headquarters and a police station the militia had overrun. At one point, Iraqi security forces crossed the Tigris River in a small boat under machine-gun fire to reclaim a vital bridge, according to the U.S. military.
The Iraqi Health Ministry reported 72 people killed in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, according to the Reuters news agency. A commander with the Polish army, which is responsible for security in the area, called the situation serious and held out the possibility of requesting more U.S. troops.
Clashes involving Mahdi Army forces were also reported in Diwaniyah, east of Najaf, and in Nasiriyah, south of Najaf, as well as in Baghdad's Sadr City, the vast Shiite slum named for Sadr's late father, an esteemed ayatollah.
Sadr's supporters marched in the southern port of Basra, and in Amarah several hundred members of the Iraqi National Guard vowed to switch their allegiance to the Mahdi Army until U.S. forces leave Najaf, the Associated Press reported.
The military announced that one U.S. service member was killed in the day's fighting, but did not identify the victim or specify where the incident occurred.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who left his Najaf home for the first time in six years just as clashes here began last week, broke his silence on Thursday, calling for an end to all fighting.
"All efforts should be directed to finding a peaceful solution," Sistani said through an aide in London, where he is said to be receiving treatment for a heart condition. "A military solution will resolve nothing."
There were reports of a fresh attempt to renew negotiations between the interim government and Sadr's representatives. But in an interview with the al-Jazeera satellite television network, a spokesman for Sadr dismissed current talks as "superficial."
"Our leader is moving in the direction of martyrdom," said Abdul Hadi Darraji, a sheik. "The government and America want to destroy the Sadr movement. This government wants to fulfill their interests without paying attention to the people's benefit. If they attack the holy shrine of Imam Ali, they will face big rage in Baghdad and other cities."
In Najaf, Shaibani, the Sadr spokesman, said in a telephone interview: "We are ready to face them. We were able to control everything for eight months, and we are able to continue controlling the situation."
U.S. commanders displayed confidence as well, while acknowledging the exceptional tactical challenge they face in trying to dislodge a guerrilla force from a religious site that U.S. troops are under orders not to target.
"They want the Americans to shoot the holy shrine," a Najaf resident advised Ollivant, the Army major, as he mingled with Iraqis in the industrial section of the city. Relatively few in Najaf support Sadr, whom they view as disrespectful of Sistani.
"Take Moqtada Sadr's army out from Najaf," said another resident, Hassan Yusuf, clutching a spark plug box in front of a row of repair shops. "We don't want them."
"Ha! Neither do we!" Ollivant replied.
At the vast cemetery north of the shrine, Ollivant looked in on a company of the Army's 1st Cavalry, 5th Regiment, which reinforced the Marine battalion there when the Mahdi Army ambushed it seven days earlier. That clash quickly escalated into a fight for control of the sprawling necropolis of dun-colored tombs, which has doubled as an arms depot and staging area for the militia.
A week later, the graveyard belonged to no one. The Americans patrolled to deny its use to the militia and draw its fire. A cavalry company called in helicopter fire on insurgents, who fired mortars toward its position earlier in the day.
But the cavalry's Bradley Fighting Vehicles ventured no closer than a mile from the southern border of the cemetery, which ends at the wall surrounding the Imam Ali shrine. Their barrels were pointed toward it, but they were forbidden to fire in that direction for fear of a shot reaching the sacred site and sending repercussions through the Muslim world.
"They're using it as safe haven, and we're being religious about not hitting the shrine. It's like Waco," Ollivant said, referring to the confrontation in the Texas city in 1993 between the FBI and the Branch Davidians, "only they're holed up inside St. Patrick's Cathedral."
The restriction limits the options for U.S. troops. Without a negotiated solution with Sadr, defeating his militia and asserting the authority of the interim government would seem to require an assault on the insurgents sheltered under the golden dome.
Iraqi politicians say the solution is to send homegrown forces into the shrine after U.S. troops fight their way through the warren of alleys and streets surrounding it. U.S. Special Forces have trained a commando force of Iraqis, a unit that fought Sunni Muslim insurgents in Fallujah in April when other Iraqi forces refused.
"The Iraqi police and the Iraqi armed forces will be the forces to liberate the shrine," Naqib said at the news conference.
Defense Minister Hazim Shalan said military operations will continue "until the militias evacuate the holy shrine."
Shalan said Iraqi and U.S. forces had captured about 1,200 people in the Najaf area over the past week. Residents said most of the insurgents were from elsewhere in Iraq, especially Baghdad, but the defense minister said some of the prisoners were foreigners. He provided no additional details, but U.S. commanders in Najaf said the Iraqis had told of capturing prisoners from Syria and Iran.
"The situation taking place is a conspiracy against the Iraqi people," Naqib said. "This is a war that aims to destroy Iraq."
Correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad and special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.
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U.S. Troops, Guerrillas Clash in Embattled Baghdad
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61174-2004Aug12.html
BAGHDAD, Aug. 12 -- U.S. forces and insurgents fought a pitched battle Thursday in a central neighborhood of Baghdad, where at least nine Bradley Fighting Vehicles poured cannon fire into a downtown apartment building that had been seized by guerrillas.
Iraqi officials said after the clash that they had captured a leader and 25 members of a gang responsible for attacks in the city.
The fight was one of several clashes in Baghdad, which is taking on the pall of a besieged city despite assurances by government officials that their forces remain in control. Long lines of automobiles waited for fuel at the few gas stations still open for business. Mosques closed, markets were empty, businesses shut down early. Women and children stayed indoors, and men did not venture out far.
Baghdad's Sadr City, a Shiite Muslim slum of about 2 million, remained virtually encircled by U.S. troops and Iraqi forces. The area remained largely under the control of supporters of the Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who was under siege 90 miles to the south in Najaf. Iraqi officials said they had defused 300 explosive devices around Sadr City's perimeter.
The area was unusually quiet Thursday evening. A resident of Sadr City said by telephone that members of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia loyal to Sadr, were in front of television sets.
"Now everyone in Sadr City is busy watching the soccer game," said the resident, who would not give his name. "Everybody is celebrating that the Iraqi team won." Playing in the Olympic Games in Greece, Iraq upset Portugal, 4-2.
The heaviest fighting in Baghdad erupted early in the day in the downtown area of Haifa Street. U.S. forces took the lead, while the lightly armed Iraqi police stayed in the rear.
Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Shalan said the clashes culminated when the Iraqi National Guard "carried out an attack on some safe houses taken over by former Baathists and other terrorists" on Haifa Street. "We were able to arrest the leader of a dangerous group, who has been wanted for a year. Others of his group were arrested."
Bradley Fighting Vehicles roared into the battle, guns and cannons blazing, and F-15 jets dropped flares and flew low, but apparently did not drop any bombs. Attack helicopters buzzed about an apartment building, while armored vehicles fired toward it from the other side of Haifa Street. A crackle of automatic weapons fire answered.
As the fighting subsided, billows of black smoke rose to smudge the bleached sky just as the call to afternoon prayers floated out from a nearby mosque.
Lt. Col. Heider Abdul Rasul, a commander of the Iraqi National Guard, said insurgents used automatic weapons and grenades during the fight. But "we now have the leader in our prison, along with 25 of his men," Rasul said.
He said he had no information on casualties. Officials at a local hospital said they had not taken in any casualties because the area was still under military control and the injured could not be moved.
A spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division said Thursday night that because the operation was continuing, he could not give any details of the fighting.
Elsewhere in Iraq, two U.S. Marines were killed and three were injured when a CH-53 helicopter crashed late Wednesday in volatile Anbar province. No enemy fire was observed at the time of the crash, the military said. The military declined to say where the crash occurred in the large western province.
Also Wednesday night, gunmen in Mosul killed two police officers and two bystanders, according to Iraqi police.
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Cease-Fire in Najaf as Truce Talks With Sadr Rebels Go On
August 13, 2004
The New York Times
By ALEX BERENSON and JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/international/middleeast/13CND-IRAQ.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
NAJAF, Iraq, Aug. 13 - United States Army units and marines ceased offensive operations here this morning, military commanders said, while talks to try to arrive at a lasting truce were being held between Iraqi officials and aides to the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
The Second Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry pulled back from 1920 Revolution Square, away from the holy Shrine of Imam Ali, which is roughly in the center of the cordoned area set up around the old city by American forces on Thursday.
The cordon has been loosened, so it is now possible to enter by way of the square, to the far east of the perimeter.
Marines continue to conduct patrols, but the military says it is not facing any attacks, and that the city is quiet while it awaits the outcome of the truce talks, no details of which were made available.
In the nearby city of Kufa, Iraqi security forces and members of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit raided a mosque before dawn that was being used as a militant stronghold, the coalition press office in Baghdad announced. Several militiamen were killed and eight were detained, the coalition said.
Reports that Mr. Sadr had been wounded by shrapnel could not be confirmed, the coalition said, adding that there was no indication coalition forces had been involved in an attack against the cleric.
Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy director for operations for the coalition forces, said in a statement, "Multinational forces are operating under firm instructions not to pursue Moktada and not to conduct operations within the exclusion zone surrounding the Imam Ali and Kufa mosques."
Maj. Bob Pizzitola, executive officer for the First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry Regiment of the First Cavalry Division, said, "We are allowed to engage the enemy only in self-defense and long enough to break contact," The Associated Press reported. "That was a blanket order for everybody."
According to a spokesman for Mr. Sadr today, the cleric is willing to pull his forces out of Najaf as long as American forces also withdraw and religious authorities agree to administer the city's sacred Shiite sites, news agencies reported.
The spokesman, Sheik Ali Smeisim, said Mr. Sadr was demanding the release of his captive fighters and an amnesty for his forces, who have been battling American troops in Najaf and other Iraqi cities for the past nine days.
Sheik Smeisim also said Mr. Sadr wanted his Mahdi Army fighters to be allowed to take part in Iraq's political process.
There was no immediate confirmation of the statement.
In the southern city of Basra, gunmen seized a British journalist, identified as James Brandon of The Sunday Telegraph, from a hotel where he was staying late Thursday night, the police said today. The kidnappers threatened to kill him within 24 hours unless coalition forces withdraw from Najaf, but he was later released.
Mr. Brandon was the third journalist kidnapped in Iraq in recent months. In April, two Japanese journalists were among a group of Japanese abducted near the city of Falluja and released unharmed.
American commanders in this city of 500,000 resorted reluctantly on Thursday to a scaled-down objective, throwing a wide cordon of troops and armor around the city's heart and announcing that they planned to "further isolate" the militiamen.
Only days after the new Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, flew into Najaf on an American military helicopter and announced that there would be "no negotiations or truce," he and the American officials in Baghdad who are his indispensable partners in power appear, for now, to have backed away from a showdown. Instead, they are pursuing a combination of negotiations and a tightening blockade around the mosque.
Raising the morale of the militiamen, loyalists of Mr. Sadr have spread their insurrection across central and southern Iraq, the country's Shiite heartland.
His militiamen have attacked in Sadr City, the Baghdad slum, as well as in Diwaniya, Kut, Al-Hayy, Nasiriya, Amara and Basra, towns that are among the largest Shiite population centers, each of them a way station for American and British troops in the invasion 16 months ago that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The fiercest fighting Thursday, apart from Najaf, appeared to have been in Kut, a city about 150 miles south of Baghdad that was briefly taken over by Mr. Sadr's fighters in the spring.
According to Qassim al-Mayahi, the head of al-Zahra hospital, 84 people were killed and more than 170 wounded, many of them civilians, in fighting that began with rebel attacks on government buildings on Wednesday. A police commander said the attacks subsided only after American warplanes staged a two-hour bombing raid before dawn on Thursday of a district where Mr. Sadr had a militia base.
At a news conference on Thursday evening, the Iraqi interior minister, Falah Naqib, painted a grim picture of the situation created by the Sadr forces, calling it "a war." Dismissing Mr. Sadr's claim to be the leader of a national resistance movement, he said: "This doesn't fall into the category of national resistance. It is an assault on the Iraqi people."
Qassim Daoud, a minister of state in Dr. Allawi's cabinet, said there could be only one response. "The only solution is the rule of law," and bringing an end to attempts by Mr. Sadr to seize power, he said. "These people are trying to deprive the Iraqi people of their rights," he added.
The situation in Najaf was redolent of events in April, when American commanders, confronted then as now by an uprising stirred by Mr. Sadr, built up a powerful strike force around Najaf with a vow to uproot the cleric and his fighters from the Imam Ali mosque, then decided that the political costs of attacking or damaging the shrine compelled an accommodation.
Then, Mr. Sadr won agreement to an "exclusion zone" in Najaf's center that left him free to build his militia and advance himself as the authentic leader of Shiite resistance to American military occupation.
In a statement issued in Baghdad, Dr. Allawi, whose vows to crush the insurgents are a hallmark of his first weeks in office, made it clear that concerns about Shiite reaction to an assault on the mosque had given him pause. "I would like to relay to the noble people of Iraq that the holy shrine will remain safe from all attacks that could possibly harm its sacredness," he said.
The goal now, he said on Thursday, would be to get the rebels in the shrine to surrender their weapons and leave, taking advantage of a 30-day amnesty for rebels announced last weekend.
One aide said that Dr. Allawi, himself a Shiite, had been influenced by a growing number of calls for restraint from other leading Shiites in the new political establishment in Baghdad. As well, they said, he had taken note of a statement issued from a London hospital on behalf of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered of Iraq's Shiite religious leaders, who left the country just before the uprising reignited. Aides have said that Ayatollah Sistani, who is 73, is suffering from a heart condition.
Throughout Mr. Sadr's insurrections, dating to March, Ayatollah Sistani has remained noncommittal, a stance many Iraqis say reflects both his contempt for Mr. Sadr as a religious upstart and an acknowledgment that he has a widespread following that may have to be factored in to any future political arrangements.
The ayatollah said Najaf and other Shiite cities were `experiencing tragic circumstances now, in which sanctities are violated, blood is shed, and properties destroyed, with no deterrence.` He went on to call for a negotiated solution. `His eminence calls on all factions to work seriously to end this crisis soon, and lay principles to ensure that it does not occur again,` the statement said.
By late Thursday, negotiations had begun in Najaf.
Alex Berenson reported from Najaf, Iraq, for this article and John F. Burns from Baghdad.
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Radical Iraqi Cleric Reportedly Injured in Fighting in Najaf
August 13, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html?pagewanted=all&position=
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi officials and aides to a radical Shiite cleric negotiated Friday to end fighting that has raged in Najaf for nine days, after American forces suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. Al-Sadr's aides said he was wounded by shrapnel, but Iraqi officials said the cleric was involved in the talks.
In the southern city of Basra, gunmen briefly seized a British journalist and threatened to kill him unless coalition forces withdrew from Najaf, but they let him go after al-Sadr's aides intervened.
With negotiations under way, the U.S. military said it suspended offensive operations against al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militiamen, who are holed up in the city's vast cemetery and the Imam Ali shrine, one of the holiest sites to Shiite Muslims.
``We are allowed to engage the enemy only in self-defense and long enough to break contact,'' said Maj. Bob Pizzitola, executive officer for the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division. ``That was a blanket order for everybody.''
He said the militia appeared to have stopped most attacks as well, and the city appeared quieter just one day after the U.S. military launched a major offensive.
``Hopefully, the talks will go well and everything will be resolved peacefully,'' Pizzitola said.
Despite the suspension of the offensive, he said, U.S. troops were maintaining a cordon around the shrine, the cemetery and Najaf's old city, where the militants have taken refuge.
The U.S. Defense Department said about 2,200 Marines, along with 500 to 1,000 soldiers and an undisclosed number of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops, were involved in Thursday's offensive.
Also Friday, U.S. airstrikes hit Fallujah, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. The U.S. military had no immediate comment, but U.S. forces have fought with militants holed up in that Sunni Muslim city for months.
One of Iraq's most senior Shiite religious leaders called for an end to the Najaf battle, as Iraqis took to the streets across the country to protest the fighting.
``What is going on in Najaf and the rest of the Iraqi cities is a violation of sanctities, an aggression on holy sites and shedding of innocent blood that could lead to a vicious civil war,'' Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi said during Friday prayers in Karbala.
``I call on everyone to shun violence, stop all military operations and for the immediate withdrawal the troops from the cities.''
Najaf Gov. Adnan al-Zurufi said negotiations were being held between officials of Iraq's interim government and al-Sadr's representatives, without participation by U.S. officials. National Security Adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie and Defense Minister Hazem Shalan were both in Najaf, Iraqi officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said all activities in Najaf were being ``closely coordinated'' between coalition forces and the Iraqi leadership.
``What's at stake there is no different than what's at stake anywhere in the country: 25 million Iraqi people that have been liberated are on a path toward a free and democratic system. To the extent that people use violence to try to prevent that, they'll be stopped,'' Rumsfeld said in Partenit, Ukraine.
Al-Sadr has led an uprising against coalition troops for more than a week. An aide, Haider al-Tousi, said the cleric was hit in the chest and leg by shrapnel as he met with militia members near the Imam Ali shrine early Friday, and another aide said his condition was stable.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry said al-Sadr was not wounded and had been involved in the negotiations since Friday morning. Reports about his injury are ``an attempt to incite others aiming at escalating the situation,'' a ministry statement said.
But in Washington, a senior U.S. official, when asked whether al-Sadr had been wounded, said, ``That is our understanding.'' The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States learned of al-Sadr's condition from Iraqi sources and did not know anything about the circumstances.
Al-Sadr urged his followers to remain calm.
``We got a letter from him saying: 'Be steadfast and behave rationally. Don't surrender to your emotions,''' Aws al-Khafaji, at al-Sadr's office in the southern town of Nasiriyah, told Al-Jazeera television.
In a sermon read on his behalf during Friday prayers at the Kufa Mosque, al-Sadr said the United States was intent on ``occupying the whole world.''
``The presence of occupation in Iraq has made our country an unbearable hell,'' he said. He called on Iraqis to rebel ``because I will not allow another Saddam-like government again.''
In Basra, police said 30 gunmen abducted British journalist James Andrew Brandon, 23, of the Sunday Telegraph from the Diafa Hotel late Thursday. A video given to Associated Press Television News showed Brandon standing bare-chested with his head bandaged.
The militants said they took Brandon hostage to protest the U.S. military presence in Najaf and threatened to kill him within 24 hours if coalition troops did not leave the city. But he was later brought to al-Sadr's office in Basra and freed.
At an impromptu news conference, Brandon said the kidnappers' attitude changed when Ahmed al-Khalisy, head of the al-Sadr office, condemned his kidnapping and called for his immediate release. He said the gunmen had beaten him and at one point even used an unloaded gun in a mock execution.
Kidnappers in Iraq have seized dozens of hostages in recent months, threatening to kill them in an effort to force out coalition forces and companies that support them.
The Najaf fighting is the biggest test yet for interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who is striving to suppress the violence plaguing Iraq while trying to persuade Iraqis of the legitimacy of his unelected government.
The casualty toll in Thursday's fighting in the city was unclear. At least five Iraqi civilians were killed by the afternoon, said Nabil Mohammed, a health worker in the city. Two American soldiers were wounded by a mortar shell at the cemetery's edge, the military said.
Iraq's top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who lives in Najaf but is in London for medical treatment, expressed ``deep sorrow and great worry'' about the violence and called on all sides to end the crisis quickly. His office was working to mediate an end to the fighting, he said.
Violence and unrest have spread to other communities.
Mahdi Army militants killed two police officers in an ambush outside Nasiriyah on Thursday afternoon, police said Friday.
A three-hour overnight battle between militants and police outside a police station in the southern city of Diwaniyah killed one militant, police Capt. Ali al-Zeyadi said.
Thousands of al-Sadr supporters, including some police officers, demonstrated outside Baghdad's Green Zone enclave housing the U.S. Embassy and government offices.
In the largely Sunni town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, about 700 demonstrators demanded that U.S. troops leave Najaf, chanting, ``Long live al-Sadr!''
In Fallujah, about 3,000 people demonstrated in support of al-Sadr, chanting ``Fallujah is with Najaf, the target is America.''
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INTERNATIONAL REACTION
Shiite Muslims Condemn U.S. for Attacks on Holy City
August 13, 2004
By NAZILA FATHI
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/international/middleeast/13reax.html?pagewanted=all
TEHRAN, Aug. 12 - The American military's advance into the holy city of Najaf in Iraq to crush a Shiite rebel uprising aroused anger and frustration on Thursday among Shiite Muslims abroad. Many blamed the United States for what they described as an intentional and brutal humiliation by an occupying force that would provoke outrage if any holy shrines were destroyed.
In neighboring Iran, where a majority of the population is Shiite, the reaction was particularly vitriolic, with the Foreign Ministry denouncing the American forces amassed in and around Najaf as "inhumane and horrifying." Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed fighting in Najaf over the past week.
Najaf is home to the holiest site in Shiite Islam, the Shrine of Imam Ali, who Shiites believe was the legitimate successor of the Prophet Muhammed. American military commanders have said they are taking great precautions to avoid destruction of any holy sites, but televised images of damage in a cemetery near the Najaf shrine have left many Shiites doubtful.
"American occupiers have shown that they are not committed to any morality, and their recent attacks reveal their face, which is hidden behind their false claims of democracy," a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Hamid Reza Assefi, said.
He said the presence of foreign forces and the delay in the transfer of power to the Iraqi people had caused the crisis and called on the international community to "react to the killing of defenseless Iraqi people."
In Iran, a hard-line political party and Revolutionary Guards urged people to take part in a rally after Friday Prayer to "show their hatred toward inhumane acts of the United States."
In Cairo, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Mussa, warned that any violation of sacred Muslim places could have "dangerous consequences," and he urged "all the warring parties to halt immediately military operations under way in Najaf to allow the evacuation of the dead and wounded." In Lebanon, a major Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, blamed the interim Iraqi government for permitting the offensive.
"It is the responsibility of all to take on the burden of expelling the occupiers from Iraq through any means possible," the ayatollah said in a statement issued in Beirut.
In India, where there are about 27 million Shiites, clerics and prominent Shiites said they had organized anti-American demonstrations, and some accused the United States of deliberately endangering holy sites in Najaf, Karbala and other Iraqi holy places. "This is a very grave situation for the sentiments of Shia community anywhere in the world," said Shamim Kazim, president of the All India Shia conference, a Shiite organization based in New Delhi.
"We will oppose this in whatever the manner we can," he said. "Even at the time of beginning of the war, the sanctity of Najaf and Karbala was safeguarded. But, God forbid, if something happens to these two places, then the whole Shia community, anywhere in the world, irrespective of the country, will react seriously."
Molvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, a Shiite religious leader in the disputed area of Kashmir adjoining Pakistan, said the Americans were "totally hellbent to destroy the Muslim sacred places."
"Even in the earlier war of Christians and Muslims, nobody touched our religious places," he said.
John Kifner, in Beirut, and Hari Kumar,in New Delhi, contributed reporting for this article.
--------
Slaughter as US forces attack Najaf
August 13, 2004
The Australian
By Nicolas Rothwell
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10427556%5E601,00.html
AT LEAST 165 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in heavy fighting across Iraq over the past 24 hours as US marines moved to wipe out Moqtada al-Sadr's militia forces in the holy city of Najaf.
As US tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships attacked the radical cleric's Mehdi Army, the rebels fired mortar rounds from the courtyard of the Imam Ali mosque, one of the holiest Shi'ite sites.
Within hours of the onslaught, US marines claimed to control the city centre. But hundreds of rebels were believed to have dispersed in the tunnels beneath Najaf's cemetery to prepare for a last stand.
Iraqi civil defence forces and police units were sent to seal off the holy areas.
"Major operations to destroy the militia have begun," a US commander said.
Correspondents embedded with US troops in Najaf said a pincer movement, supported by air power, began on Thursday morning, local time, with the aim of trapping the insurgents in their hide-outs.
Tanks blocked roads leading to the mosque, while US troops broadcast messages in Arabic saying the offensive was aimed at Sadr's militia.
"Leave the city," the message said. "Help coalition forces and do not fire at them. We are here to liberate the city."
But the mosque broadcast its own message, urging fighters to defend Najaf. "God bless our courageous mujaheddin," the message said.
US military officials have made clear the rebellion will be crushed at all costs, despite criticism by Iraqi Deputy President Irbrahim al-Jaffari, who last night described the US onslaught as "vicious".
Soon after the attack began, Najaf deputy governor Jawdat Kadam Najem al-Kuraishi quit in protest. "I resign from my post denouncing all the US terrorist operations they are doing against this holy city," he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi issued a statement saying the shrine would be safe from attack and would not be entered by the US-led forces.
"His excellency is holding the armed elements inside the shrine responsible for any harm or damage that may occur," the statement said.
The offensive was preceded by heavy US bombing of another Shi'ite holy city, Kut, north of Najaf.
The Iraqi Health Ministry said 75 people were killed and 148 wounded in that attack.
The ministry said 44 died and 164 were wounded in Baghdad, mostly in the Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City. The early fighting in Najaf left 25 dead and 153 wounded; 14 were killed and 77 wounded in Amara; and seven were killed and 52 wounded in Diwaniya.
The US-led assault aims to strengthen the position of Mr Allawi's interim government and deter further rebellions.
It is a high-stakes move, given that the heavy loss of life will be shown on television. And while US audiences will see reassuring images of helicopters in the sky, Arab viewers are receiving the raw, emotive pictures of the slaughter of the rebels.
The outcome of the conflict may be inevitable, given the overwhelming firepower on the US side, but the images that may reassure anxious US voters will inflame opinion in the broader Arab world.
This dilemma is understood by the rebels and forms the core of their strategy: they have retreated into the holy complex because it is there the US and Iraqi government forces, in destroying the uprising, will do their own cause the greatest harm.
-----
US warplanes strafe Najaf as world oil prices go through the roof
Aug 13, 2004
NAJAF, Iraq (AFP)
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040812231304.dszrjv4g.html
US warplanes screamed over this Iraqi holy city Thursday in a massive assault aimed at crushing a Shiite Muslim uprising, as the specter of attacks on the country's petroleum infrastructure sent world oil prices to record highs for the second time in 48 hours.
Jets roared overhead as massive explosions and tank and machine-gun fire boomed through the city and smoke engulfed its historic centre, home to the Imam Ali shrine, revered by Shiites the world over.
Thousands of US forces, backed by Iraqi police and national guard, mounted a pincer assault to trap Moqtada Sadr's fighters in the heart of the city, before going on to raid the militia leader's home, which was unoccupied.
Iraqi and US troops sealed approaches to the mausoleum, as hundreds of terrified residents fled through the dusty streets.
"Leave the city. Help coalition forces and do not fire at them," one announcement instructed in Arabic. "We are here to liberate the city."
Armed militiamen fanned out into the deserted plaza outside the shrine as mosques urged Sadr's Mehdi Army to defy the onslaught and defend the city.
By dusk, one militiamen had been killed and 25 wounded, while one civilian was killed and three others injured, said the clinic inside the shrine.
The government said the joint offensive would continue and demanded that the Mehdi Army quit the holy shrine, but pledged US forces would not be allowed to enter the sacred mausoleum.
"The operations are continuing... and will continue until the militia is forced out or they surrender," Defence Minister Hazem al-Shalan told a press conference in Baghdad. In Najaf, the militia, still in control of the area around the shrine, vowed to fight until the bitter end.
"We are ready to fight until the last drop of blood if this is what the Americans want," said Sheikh Ali al-Sumeisim.
Various efforts were underway to defuse the standoff. The government's point man on security, Muwafaq al-Rubaie, headed to Najaf in a bid to meet with Sadr and end the assault.
The Najaf office of Iraq's revered Shiite Muslim spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani also said it was working with all sides for peace.
Envoy Hussein al-Shahrastani said that if Sistani had predicted the scale of the crisis he would never have left for medical treatment in Britain.
"We ask all sides to immediately renounce arms to save Muslim blood and the sanctity of the city," he said.
But Iraq's top Sunni Muslim body warned the security forces against supporting the US military.
Early Thursday, Najaf deputy governor Jawdat Kadam Najem al-Kuraishi and half of the 30-member provincial council resigned in protest against US "terrorist operations" and the "hasty US invasion" of Najaf.
The UN Security Council meanwhile voted unanimously to extend the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq by one year.
The mandate for the mission, created on August 14, 2003, was to expire on Friday.
And in Washington, the United States declared its military operations in Iraq were not covered by the so-called Olympic truce it signed at the United Nations last year.
On the eve of the opening of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the US State Department said US troops fighting in Iraq would not be bound by the terms of the truce that calls for all nations in conflict to observe a traditional ceasefire during the Games.
Twenty-four hours of nationwide fighting in Iraq, mostly in the Shiite south and Sadr's Baghdad stronghold, has claimed 165 lives and wounded 594, the health ministry said.
In Baghdad's district of Kadhimiyah and the British-patrolled southern oil city of Basra, thousands of people protested against US attacks on holy cities, held aloft pictures of Sadr and denounced Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
A British soldier was later killed in the city when his patrol was struck by a homemade bomb -- the second British soldier to die in 72 hours in Iraq.
Further north, in Kut, which fell briefly to the Mehdi Army in Sadr's spring uprising against the US-led occupation, heavy overnight US bombing killed 84 people and wounded 176, medics said.
US planes pounded the southern Al-Shakia district, a densely populated Mehdi Army stronghold, but medics said many of the dead were women and children.
In the Baghdad militia stronghold of Sadr City, two people were killed after they attacked a US patrol, the military said.
The uprising, which has fanned out across Shiite cities south of Najaf and forced the closure of a southern oil pipeline, has halved Iraq's crude exports and led to losses of about 60 million dollars, the government said.
Fighting in Najaf and heightened Mehdi threats against oil infrastructure saw world oil prices soar to all-time highs.
New York's light sweet crude for delivery in September, shot up to an unprecedented 45.50 dollars a barrel in early trading. London's benchmark Brent North Sea crude for September exceeded 42 dollars for the first time.
A shadowy Shiite militant group also threatened to kill all those working with British troops in the region. It was not clear if the group had any direct links with the Mehdi Army.
In Baghdad, US planes roared overhead as a sign of force when Mehdi Army militia attacked a police station in the centre of the capital and police called for US back-up, the militia said.
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Weighs Giving Up Golan Heights
August 13, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's security would not be threatened if it gave up the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria, Israel's army chief said in remarks published Friday, departing from the military's traditional view that Israel needs at least part of the plateau as a security buffer.
Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon spoke a day after Vice Premier Ehud Olmert indicated that Israel will have to evacuate more Israeli settlements in the West Bank than the four mentioned in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan of ``unilateral disengagement'' from the Palestinians.
As part of the plan, Israel would withdraw from all of the Gaza Strip and the four West Bank settlements by the end of 2005.
Also Friday, an Israeli guard at a West Bank settlement was killed in an ambush. Other guards then killed the Palestinian gunman.
Israel has long argued that giving up the Golan, which it captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed in 1981, could leave northern Israel vulnerable to Syrian attack.
In failed peace talks with Syria, Sharon's moderate predecessor, Ehud Barak, offered to withdraw from virtually all of the heights, but insisted on special security arrangements and some border adjustments.
However, Yaalon suggested that from a military point of view, Israel could afford to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines, a key Syrian demand.
``If you ask me, theoretically, if we can reach an agreement with Syria ... my answer is that from a military standpoint it is possible to reach an agreement by giving up the Golan Heights,'' Yaalon told the daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot.
``The army is able to defend any border. This is correct for any political decision that is taken in Israel.''
The last round of Israeli-Syrian peace talks collapsed in 2000, with Syrians insisting on a complete withdrawal from the Golan, and Israel seeking border adjustments near Israel's Sea of Galilee, at the foot of the plateau.
Last year, Syria made overtures indicating it wanted to resume talks. However, Israel says Syria must first end its support for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Palestinian radicals it hosts in Syria itself.
Syria said Friday it will not take seriously Israeli offers to pull out of the Golan Heights unless they are backed by moves on the ground or an open commitment to withdraw.
``We don't give such statements any weight unless they are associated with a serious move (toward peace) and with international guarantees,'' Syrian government adviser Haj Ali told The Associated Press. ``Whoever is willing to make peace should return the land to its owners and withdraw immediately or declare that openly and clearly.''
He added that he believed Yaalon's statement was designed to ``show Israel was the party seeking peace in order to look good in the upcoming American elections.''
Yaalon warned that Syria still represented a threat to Israel's security and that the two counties could again find themselves engaged in a war.
``I can't ignore the scenario in which an escalation on the Lebanese front leads to a confrontation between the two armies,'' he said.
Yaalon noted that Syria has ``missiles that put all of Israel in range and chemical capabilities.''
Sharon's aides had no comment on Yaalon's remarks. In the past, Sharon has opposed a complete withdrawal from the Golan.
Meanwhile, Sharon's vice premier, Olmert, indicated that Israel will leave much of the West Bank after it exits Gaza next year.
Olmert spoke Thursday during a tour of a section of the separation barrier Israel is building along and in the West Bank to keep Palestinian attackers out.
His office quoted him as saying that Israel would have to evacuate more settlements because of international pressure and Israel's own desire to remain a Jewish state.
It was one of the clearest indications yet from an Israeli leader that the disengagement might be only the first phase of a future Israeli pullback from most of the West Bank, to make room for a Palestinian state.
Later, Olmert clarified his remarks by saying further withdrawals would not take place soon. ``Certainly it is not on the agenda now,'' he told Israel TV.
Olmert, a leading member of Sharon's Likud party, said even the United States, Israel's main ally, wants an Israeli withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank, and that would mean removing settlements to reduce friction with the international community.
``If we don't do this, we will pay a very tough price,'' his office quoted him as saying.
While about 8,000 settlers live in Gaza, more than 230,000 live in 150 West Bank settlements. Sharon has said that one goal of the plan is to solidify Israel's hold on the main West Bank settlement blocs, implying that settlements outside the blocs would be expendable.
Friday's shooting attack took place near the settlement of Itamar.
The gunman ambushed a car driving near the entrance to the settlement, seriously wounding a security guard who died on the way to hospital, the army said.
The gunman tried to flee with the guard's rifle but was killed by other guards from the settlement, the army said.
Palestinian sources identified the gunman as Yussef Ahmed Hanani, 27, a Palestinian police officer from the nearby village of Beit Furik. It was not clear if he was affiliated with a militant group.
--------
How a Zionist Hawk Grew His New Dovish Feathers
August 13, 2004
By JOSEPH BERGER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/international/middleeast/13israel.html?pagewanted=all
JERUSALEM - Ehud Olmert, Israel's deputy prime minister, belongs to this country's right-wing aristocracy.
He was born on a settlement in British-administered Palestine that was named after Vladimir Jabotinsky, the uncompromising Zionist leader whose ideas of an expansive Israel were mother's milk to young Ehud. His father was a leader of the Irgun, the most die-hard of the underground militias that fought the British, and was later appointed by Menachem Begin to head the movement of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
So it was no surprise that Ehud, as a young member of the Parliament some 31 years ago, advocated the building of new settlements by religious groups.
But now Mr. Olmert has made a 180-degree turn. For the past half year, he has been leading the task of dismantling the 21 settlements in Gaza, four in the West Bank and many others to follow.
On Thursday, Mr. Olmert told settlers that even more settlements will need to be dismantled after Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank next year.
As the first prominent right-winger to champion this position, Mr. Olmert has come to epitomize the philosophical transformation that has occurred among many of this country's hawkish leaders - not least of all Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
In an interview in his office here in July, Mr. Olmert said his change of heart involved the country's changing demography, its disillusionment with Palestinian peacemakers and its byzantine politics, particularly the role played by the former Labor Party prime minister, Ehud Barak. It also may explain why so many Israelis have moved in this direction as they grow weary of the suffering caused by the four-year-old Palestinian uprising and disenchanted with the possibilities of a solution through negotiations.
Of course, Mr. Olmert's motives may not be entirely selfless. More than a few politicians note that his path to the post-Sharon leadership of the Likud Party is blocked by rivals on the right like Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Olmert's one opportunity to be prime minister, these politicians say, might depend on the creation of a new moderate party made up of dovish Likud members, hawkish Laborites and members of the secularist Shinui Party.
Mr. Olmert said in the interview that he had never lost the conviction that Israel's historical homeland embraces all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and that the occupied territories were captured fairly by Israel because it was about to be attacked by its Arab neighbors in 1967.
But he concluded many years ago that Israel could not continue the occupation of 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in the face of international condemnation, and a few years ago he came to the conclusion that it was impossible "to make an agreement with the Palestinians."
"They are not prepared to absorb the concept of compromise," he said. "They don't want anything other than the 1967 line, all of Jerusalem and the right of return. I don't believe the terror will end."
The turning point, he said, came in July 2000 on a day he describes as the hardest of his life. As mayor of Jerusalem, he had let the Israeli electorate know that the Labor Party candidate for prime minister, Ehud Barak, would never divide Jerusalem, a claim Mr. Barak advertised heavily as part of his winning campaign against Mr. Netanyahu.
"Barak spent lots of time with me, to get me on board," Mr. Olmert said. " 'If you support me I'll be able to sell it,' he said. We had a series of intimate talks at his home. I didn't want Jerusalem to become an issue because it would destroy my ability to be mayor."
When as prime minister negotiating with Yasir Arafat at Camp David, Mr. Barak offered to do what he said he would not - part with much of Jerusalem as well as the top of the Temple Mount and almost the entire West Bank and Gaza in an exchange for peace, Mr. Olmert said he felt betrayed by Mr. Barak, his friend of 20 years. As it turned out Mr. Arafat turned down the offer and the talks broke off, leading to the deadly stalemate that exists today.
"So I started to rethink if what we proposed is not enough, what is?" he continued. "If we go along this path worse can happen. We pull out and the terror continues as if nothing happened. I reached a conclusion that we can't be manipulated, that we have to dictate the timetable. We have to decide which is the most appropriate borderline."
He realized that Israel faced a choice "painful as it may be between a greater Israel or the Jewish nature of our state." With a sharply higher Palestinian birthrate, the demographic reality is that Palestinians will outnumber Jews in the greater Israel that includes the occupied territories within a few years, something Moshe Shahal, a former Labor Party minister, said he had warned Likud about as early as the 1980's. Israel, Mr. Olmert said, would then have to decide whether to lose its democratic character by making Palestinians citizens without a vote or lose its Jewish character as a state.
Mr. Olmert said he did not want to live in a nondemocratic country. So he began drawing the map of a narrower Israel. He decided the principle he would use would be "maximum Jews and minimum Arabs."
The idea, he explained, was to pull out of areas densely populated by Palestinians and make sure that Israel constructs boundaries that ensure a stable Jewish majority. That is why the Gaza Strip, with its relatively isolated settlements, was the first chosen for unilateral disengagement and why populous suburban settlements like Maale Adumim will be embraced as part of Israel.
Another factor that Mr. Olmert does not emphasize, but which he admitted in a Haaretz interview, is the influence of his wife, Aliza, who is said to vote for the left-wing Meretz Party, and his children, who have always been considerably more dovish than he.
"It is indeed a very interesting question as to who was nagging more at the dinner table, me with my right-wing positions or the rest of my family with their left-wing positions," he said. "The family has been deeply engaged in a thorough and comprehensive analysis of this, and to this day we haven't yet found an accepted answer."
-------- russia / chechnya
Russia Plans Defense Spending Increase
MOSCOW (AP)
August 13, 2004
http://ap.washingtontimes.com/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_MILITARY?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME
-- Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Thursday that Russia plans a big increase in defense spending next year, with some extra money going to bigger cash allowances for soldiers.
Kudrin referred to a 40 percent jump in spending, but the monetary figure he also gave would indicate only a 17 percent rise from this year's budget. It was not clear if the amount mentioned was the entire increase planned because Kudrin did not discuss total budget numbers.
The comment came in a television broadcast of Kudrin's address to President Vladimir Putin during a meeting attended by defense and law enforcement ministers.
Kudrin described the increase as 40 percent and then referred to spending an extra 70 billion rubles, which is about $2.41 billion. But in this year's budget, defense spending was set at 411.5 billion rubles, or around $13.5 billion, so the extra money mentioned by Kudrin would translate into an increase of about 17 percent. Kudrin said soldiers will get new cash payments to make up for the abolition of free public transport and there also will be bigger allowances for serving in tough conditions. Additionally, 30,000 young officers who have served for three years and 25,000 warrant officers will receive more money as part of a housing credit program, Kudrin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Russia's military has suffered since the Soviet collapse, with officers in particular losing many of the benefits they enjoyed during Communist Party rule.
Meanwhile, Putin said a new federal program, called "Anti-Terror," would be implemented in 2005, with about $79 million allocated toward it, ITAR-Tass reported. He gave no details.
-------- spies
Senate should check doubts about Goss
President Bush's nominee to run the CIA should not sail through confirmation hearings without explaining his analysis of North Korea
BY MICHAEL A. LEVI
Michael A. Levi is science and technology fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the forthcoming book "The Future of Arms Control."
August 13, 2004
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vplev133927527aug13,0,1740675.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
Porter Goss, nominated earlier this week by President George W. Bush to head the Central Intelligence Agency, is likely to face a contentious confirmation process even if Democrats aren't openly opposing his nomination. Republicans are likely to paint even mild Democratic hesitation as obstructionist. Democrats will ask whether Goss has sufficient independence from the president, and will use the hearings to spotlight broader concerns about intelligence reform.
Already prominent in the Democrats' quiver is a four paragraph statement by Goss, speaking for the Bush-Cheney campaign, that attacked a June 1 John Kerry speech on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Goss' statement has been presented by skeptics as evidence that he is more than willing to stump for the president, and hence is unable to be objective.
The campaign statement is hardly evidence that Goss would be politically compromised as CIA director. But his remarks about the Kerry speech in a less-noticed conference call, organized in tandem with his better publicized statement, are much more worrying.
Rep. Goss began the call inauspiciously with the declaration that chemical and biological weapons are "more dangerous" than nuclear arms. In fact, nuclear arms are far more lethal than chemical arms, and in most if not all cases would be more lethal than biological arms as well. This criticism might be dismissed as scholarly conceit; won't Goss have technical experts around to set him straight? Yes, but such basics should already be rote for the chair of the House Committee on Intelligence.
The congressman's more disturbing remarks in that half-hour June call with the press addressed North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Goss said, "Clearly [North Korea is] not making the progress at Yongbyon and other places because we've called their bluff successfully." On purely technical grounds, this could not be further from the truth.
North Korea was making no progress at Yongbyon before 2002. American intelligence was certain of this, because it had human monitors at the site, and because any North Korean operation of the Yongbyon site would have been obvious. But according to American intelligence, since 2002, North Korea has restarted every key facility at Yongbyon, and has produced enough plutonium for at least six additional nuclear weapons. Any lack of progress by North Korea has been because of technical hurdles, which the CIA also watches for - not because of any calling of "bluffs."
In short, Goss' claim about North Korea differed sharply from American intelligence analysis. But perhaps he misspoke?
Not so. A perplexed reporter followed up, asking Goss how he qualified six new North Korean weapons as American "progress." The congressman's response was startling: "What they've been doing behind the curtain for a long time may be far greater than what you know - that you've just quoted to me now."
To suggest that the intelligence community knows about a massive parallel North Korean program that hasn't been publicly disclosed strongly strains credulity. Tellingly, when asked whether he had any evidence to substantiate his claims, Goss dodged. The administration would do well to inform the American people if North Korea has indeed been churning out bombs in secret, or otherwise to repudiate Goss' claim. In the meantime, it seems sensible to believe the intelligence community's already dire public estimates, which leave no room for the fantastic picture Goss paints.
Perhaps he genuinely believes that the CIA has so failed, its analysis so poor, that he cannot responsibly base his own claims on the agency's estimates. This would be a very harsh criticism. But even if it were so, the responsible reaction would be to admit uncertainty, rather than to replace suspect CIA analysis with one man's guess.
Should these odd comments disqualify Goss from becoming director? Certainly not by themselves - there are many important issues to weigh in evaluating the nominee. But senators need to shine a spotlight on this peculiar episode, behind closed doors if required to protect intelligence secrets, and demand that he explain why he made these claims. They could offer unsettling insight into how Porter Goss relates evidence to truth.
----
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Onto the Hot Florida Sands
August 13, 2004
New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/national/13goss.html?pagewanted=all&position=
FORT MYERS, Fla., Aug. 12 - Porter J. Goss and a band of brothers, secret agents in cold-war Europe, settled here in retirement three decades ago and used the political skills they had learned in the Central Intelligence Agency to create and run a new community.
They established a profitable newspaper from scratch. They set up a local government to protect pristine beaches from commercial development. And they nursed the political career of Mr. Goss, the Republican Florida congressman named this week by President Bush to be director of central intelligence.
In interviews in the last two days, old friends of Mr. Goss recalled his years as a spy and a budding politician, who rose from City Council to county commission to Congress. In the late 1960's, they said, Mr. Goss was in London as a clandestine services officer for the C.I.A., recruiting and supervising spies and foreign agents, much as he had done earlier in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Donald F. Whitehead, a onetime professor of political science and international relations, was working for the C.I.A. in Paris at the time, said his widow, Grace E. Whitehead. And Fred Valtin was working for the agency in Germany.
His widow, Jane C. Valtin, said: "Fred helped the Germans establish a postwar government under the auspices of the C.I.A. He hung around with Willy Brandt and helped build the Social Democratic Party."
The three men ended up on Sanibel Island, a short drive from Fort Myers in southwest Florida. The Whiteheads arrived first, in 1969. They helped Mr. Goss recuperate on the island when his intelligence career was cut short by a nearly fatal infection in 1971. Mr. Valtin arrived a little later.
Mrs. Whitehead said the men had become friends in Europe and founded the weekly newspaper, The Island Reporter, in 1973. They supported stringent land use planning and the incorporation of Sanibel as a way for the city to control its destiny and prevent developers from spoiling its lush tropical vegetation and beaches.
The retired spies - three spooks on an island, in the words of a friend - "used all their skills to manage this place," said Mrs. Whitehead, 86, who still lives in the area.
Developers were none too happy. They complained that "the C.I.A. was coming down here, was buying up property and would take over the island," Mrs. Whitehead recalled.
The owners of the newspaper were adept at gathering political intelligence. "Porter went to meetings of the Lee County commissioners and brought back information," Mrs. Whitehead said. "My husband, who was editor of the paper, wrote it up."
Mr. Whitehead, a former intelligence case officer, recruited Mr. Valtin to be business manager of the paper. From his years at the agency, Mr. Valtin "knew how to take care of money," Mrs. Whitehead said.
Mrs. Valtin said her husband was "budget director of the C.I.A.," at its headquarters in Northern Virginia, when he retired in 1973.
Mr. Valtin was born in Germany, but he and two brothers came to the United States in 1938 and served in the United States Army in World War II. Their father, a dentist, served in the German Army. Their mother, a Quaker, worked in this country at the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Mark R. Twombly, who went to work for the newspaper in 1974, fresh out of college, said: "This was a worldly group of people with a secretive background. They were expert at not saying anything about their C.I.A. past. That added to the intrigue and character of the place."
In a preview issue of The Island Reporter, the owners said: "We don't want to be too sophisticated, but neither do we want to be sloppy. We'll not be crusaders, predicting gloom as the byproduct of all growth. But we'll not be silent if we think that the overall interests of the community are being needlessly jeopardized by an individual or group."
Mrs. Valtin said: "The Island Reporter started in our house. Gracie addressed envelopes in our garage and it was showing a profit in six months."
After Sanibel was incorporated in 1974, Mr. Goss was elected to the City Council and became the first mayor. He served on the Lee County Commission from 1983 to 1988, when he was elected to Congress.
Mr. Goss, 65, has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since 1989. One of his four children, R. Mason Goss, 36, said the Whiteheads and the Valtins seemed like part of his family as he was growing up in Sanibel, which felt then like an idyllic "little fishing village."
Mason Goss said his knowledge of his father's career was sketchy, based mostly on surmise and speculation.
Porter Goss did serve "on Hispaniola," in the Dominican Republic, perhaps gathering intelligence on Cuba, the son said. And his father "spent some time in Miami" working for the agency. "The Cuban missile crisis was coming up right around then," said the son, who now teaches history and politics as headmaster of a private school here.
"I had no idea my father was even in the C.I.A. until I was 10 or 11 years old," in 1978 or 1979, Mason Goss said.
Mr. Whitehead and Mr. Valtin had retired after long careers in the agency. By contrast, Porter Goss retired after 10 years, when he was just 34.
"I wondered why," Mason Goss said. "My mother just said he was ill, and that's why we got to come down here to Florida. That's what we were told."
Some people have speculated that Mr. Goss's mysterious illness might have resulted from foul play in the spy wars. But Mrs. Whitehead, a nurse, and Mason Goss said they had never heard that. "We sort of understood that we didn't need to ask more questions about that," the younger Mr. Goss said.
Mrs. Whitehead said Porter Goss "had a terrible infection, spent four months in a hospital, received vast doses of antibiotics and had blood clots in his chest and his legs." A doctor told him he had to "do nothing but sit in the sun," she added.
The ex-spies joined together in another business venture that was less successful than the newspaper. They operated Island Boat Rental, in the Sanibel marina. Mrs. Whitehead said the main purpose of the business was "to give Porter something to do out in the sunshine."
Mr. Twombly said: "From a business point of view, it was a disaster. I don't think it ever made money."
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Former Spy Chief to Head British Version of FBI
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-crime-britain-chief.html
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain named a former spy chief on Friday to head a new national police unit modeled on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to fight organized crime.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said former security service chief Stephen Lander will head the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) -- a specialist organization set up to tackle drug traffickers, people smugglers, global pedophile networks and sophisticated fraudsters.
Lander headed MI5, Britain's domestic spy agency, for six years until 2002.
``Sir Stephen Lander has considerable experience of the management of intelligence, decisive leadership and proven track record of public service which make him an exceptional asset to the organization,'' Blunkett said in a statement.
The agency will have new powers such as the use of evidence from phone tapping, plea bargaining for witnesses, and a more sophisticated witness protection program.
The cost of organized crime in Britain, already about $73.2 billion per year, is rising fast and too many cases are collapsing, officials said.
``Organized crime is big business,'' Blunkett said. ``As criminals become more sophisticated, so we must raise our game to fight it.
``The creation of a single agency to tackle organized crime marks a step change in our efforts to reduce the harm it does to the UK and its citizens.''
The new national crime-fighting body merges more than 5,000 staff from four government bodies in the biggest shake-up in policing in England and Wales for 40 years.
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Covert action training
August 13, 2004
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
When the war on global terror began after the September 11 attacks, the CIA lacked a good covert action capability - the ability to conduct semi-secret paramilitary operations, such as the one that eventually help oust the hard-line Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
The agency had plenty of spies schooled in the arts of intelligence gathering. But it had no large pool of covert action operations officers.
To quickly beef up its covert action capabilities, the CIA took the stopgap measure of having the military transfer special operations soldiers, who also were in short supply. The agency also hired contractors, many of them former Special Forces or former CIA officials, who were called on to conduct paramilitary and other types of covert warfare.
To develop a better in-house covert action capability, the CIA recently launched a new type of covert action training for its clandestine service officers known as "ruggedized training." Rather than learning how to recruit spies, some new clandestine service officers are getting paramilitary training more useful to fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Intel gut
Navy Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, recently delivered his assessment of the effect of intelligence budget cuts in the Clinton years.
The decade marked al Qaeda's rise as the deadliest Islamic terror operation, yet major developments went undetected by U.S. intelligence.
"I don't think it was the drawdown of the '90s that hurt us so much," Adm. Jacoby said this week. "It was the fact that we could not restock the shelves, and so we basically made no hires, and so we weren't bringing in new talent and training them, and so we do have a very young work force now that is part and parcel. We also did not have the investment money to put into modern information management techniques and that all-source approach that I talked about in my statement. So we're catching up. And those were desperately felt impacts."
----
A Warning From the ACLU:
Emerging "Surveillance-Industrial Complex" Is Turbo-Charging Government Monitoring
Friday, August 13th, 2004
Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/13/1416244
A new report by the American Civil Liberties Union has found the government is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer data being collected by the private sector. [includes rush transcript]
The report is titled, "Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How The American Government is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society."
We are joined now by Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
This transcript is available free of charge, however donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...
AMY GOODMAN: There's a new report out by the American Civil Liberties Union that has found the government is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer data being collected by the private sector.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The report is titled "Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society." We are now joined by Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.
AMY GOODMAN: Welcome to Democracy Now!, Barry.
BARRY STEINHARDT: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this report on the surveillance-industrial complex?
BARRY STEINHARDT: Well, you know, as little as 15 or 20 years ago, we were primarily concerned about the information that the government was collecting itself. It's now increasingly clear that the government has either conscripted companies, for example, banks which are required to file literally millions of reports about our financial transactions to many companies that are willingly providing it with data, to create what amounts to a surveillance-industrial complex, that is to say, that the government is now capable of and in fact does collect literally millions and millions pieces of data about us, as individuals, and increasingly, is experimenting with programs to bring all of the data together, to create essentially dossiers about individuals.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the most threatening forms of surveillance, what you consider the most serious?
BARRY STEINHARDT: Well, you know, I don't know that there's any single technology or any single database that is the most threatening. It's two things. First of all, it's the trend. The trend here is towards the collection of all of our information and the ability to put all of that information together and have it instantly accessible. It's, I suppose, illustrated by a couple of programs. One was the Total Information Awareness program. That was the -- Admiral John Poindexter of Iran-Contra infamy who, on behalf of the research arm of the Pentagon, DARPA, was building this Total Information Awareness program, that had the capability to bring together literally thousands of different pieces of data, whether they came from the government itself or from private sector, in an attempt to predict who might be dangerous. Or what's known as the Matrix Program, which is sort of the state-level version of Total Information Awareness, which is run out of the State of Florida, but funded by the Department of Homeland Security, and in fact Department of Homeland Security has final say over its operation. Again, it's an attempt in those states that are participating, and many, many states dropped out, including New York State, but to put together all of this data, both commercial and non-commercial, and to be able to search it about any individual essentially any time that the government chooses to do so, without any judicial oversight, without any necessarily without any cause being required.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Barbara, your response to this, and also there was a report in today's Times about the census bureau sharing information by zip code of Arab Americans with the Justice Department providing all of the information that they have in their files on where Arab Americans live throughout the country by zip code.
BARBARA OLSHANSKY: Yeah, you just took the words right out of my mouth. I'm very concerned, because of the lack of checks in the commercial arena on the information that's provided, and the inability of people to contest when things are wrongly reported about them and also the misuse of information. The lack of corroboration and the government's misuse of this type of information has led to many, many instances of people being wrongly arrested, and that's happened on a widespread basis after 9/11 and before, that type of racial profiling has been rampant and used in everything from mortgage lending, you know, throughout the history of the United States, that this has been a problem, a way of categorizing people that is really problematic, and I just can foresee that this is going to be used in the way that you are indicating, putting together these databases and targeting people for the wrong reasons.
AMY GOODMAN: Barbara Olshansky from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union, I want to thank you both for being with us.
-------
CIA insider warns against reform
August 13, 2004
By Shaun Waterman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040813-123219-2183r.htm
A secret report to outgoing CIA chief George J. Tenet earlier this year warned that one of President Bush's flagship intelligence reforms, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, could undermine the agency's offensive operations against suspected terrorists overseas.
The report's author, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Richard Kerr, declined to discuss his findings or recommendations, but confirmed that he had concerns about consolidating counterterrorist activities in a single center such as the integration center - which Mr. Bush pledged to create in his January 2003 State of the Union speech.
The center is designed to fuse and analyze all information the U.S. government is collecting from every source about terrorist intentions and plans.
Mr. Kerr said the subsequent plan to develop it into a National Counter-Terrorism Center, one of the recommendations of the September 11 commission that the president has embraced, "reaches even farther."
"The concern is that you dilute the offensive operational efforts" of the CIA, Mr. Kerr said, by deploying its best personnel outside the agency to a center doing essentially defensive work, "mainly concerned with analyzing threats and providing warnings."
"Those operations have been very effective at stopping terrorist plans, breaking up their infrastructure and capturing their leadership - all overseas. They are critical activities in the war on terror."
Those offensive operations were at risk, said Mr. Kerr, a frequent consultant to the CIA who also has written a series of reports for Mr. Tenet about the agency's intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
But another former official who had seen the document said the warning was only a part of Mr. Kerr's report.
"If that's all you know," said Richard Falkenrath, who was deputy homeland security adviser to the president until May, "then you only have a part of the picture."
Mr. Falkenrath declined to elaborate further on the contents of the report. "It is a classified document," he said.
Mr. Kerr said his recommendations, delivered to Mr. Tenet in March or April - less than a year after the Terrorist Threat Integration Center came on line - had been "overtaken by events," when the September 11 commission published its own conclusions in July.
The commission urged the establishment of a National Counter-Terrorism Center, where all counterterror activities of the U.S. government - from special forces operations aiming to kill suspected terrorist leaders to FBI surveillance of U.S. citizens - would be planned.
Nonetheless, concerns about the integration center and its expansion as envisaged by the September 11 commission appear widespread in the CIA.
"Tenet was in an awkward position with [the integration center]," said Mr. Falkenrath. "To make it work, he had to take analytic assets away from the CIA's own Counter-Terrorism Center. There's a finite number of good analysts and there was a lot of unhappiness about moving them outside of the CIA."
A senior intelligence official questioned the wisdom of separating the analysts being sent to the integration center from their colleagues planning and executing operations in the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center.
The official said one advantage of the CIA's setup was that it kept "the lines of communication between analysts at headquarters and collectors in the field as short as they can be. The [CIA's center] is about as close as possible to the people gathering the critical human intelligence. ... Are you improving fusion by increasing the distance between collectors and analysts?"
-------- un
U.N. Security Council Votes to Extend Mandate in Iraq
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61504-2004Aug12.html
UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 12 -- The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to extend the United Nations' mandate in Iraq for another year, but U.N. officials said it is still too dangerous to establish more than a small political mission in the country.
The resolution, which passed by a vote of 15 to 0, calls on the United Nations "to play a leading role" in assisting Iraq through its political transition. But U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan cautioned in a report that the United Nations' role in Iraq would be limited, noting that the risk of violence "remains the overriding constraint" on U.N. activities there.
"For the foreseeable future the United Nations will remain a high value, high impact target for attack in Iraq," Annan wrote.
Annan's hesitancy poses a difficulty for the Bush administration, which has pressed the United Nations to broaden its presence in Iraq in advance of elections. It comes as U.S. and U.N. efforts to create a U.N. protection force to defend the organization upon its reentry into Iraq have stalled.
John C. Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters last week that the United States and its military allies would be prepared to provide security for U.N. staff members when they return. "The greater U.N. participation in Iraq, the better," Danforth said.
The bulk of the U.N. professionals working on Iraq -- about 50 -- will continue to manage humanitarian operations from Amman, Jordan, and Kuwait City. But Annan is sending a small political team headed by his new special representative, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, to Baghdad this week to help prepare a national conference Sunday on the country's political future and pave the way for national elections in January.
It will be the first time the United Nations has had a permanent headquarters in Baghdad since the United Nations pulled out of Iraq in October 2003, after two suicide bomb attacks against its Baghdad headquarters. The bloodiest attack, on Aug. 19, 2003, killed 22 U.N. officials and associates, including Qazi's predecessor, Sergio Vieira de Mello of Brazil.
Iraq's three-day national conference is expected to draw about 1,000 delegates from Iraq's disparate political, religious and tribal groups to select a 100-member national council to oversee the country's interim government. The conference, originally scheduled for late July, was postponed after the United Nations voiced concern that key groups had refused to attend.
U.S. and U.N. officials have promoted participation in the conference as an opportunity for Iraqis to peacefully vie for political power.
"There's room in any democracy for people to participate peacefully," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli. "That's what I think the national conference is all about. And that's what the work of the U.N., the work of the United States, the work of all of us is all about, is trying to move Iraq in that direction."
-------- us
US plans to cut forces overseas by 70,000
August 13 2004
Financial Times
By Peter Spiegel in London
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/117d14c8-ed63-11d8-a587-00000e2511c8.html
The US is expected to announce on Monday that it is pulling 70,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the largest restructuring of its global military presence since the second world war.
People briefed on the plan say two-thirds of the reductions will come in Europe, most of them military personnel stationed in Germany who will be sent back to US bases.
An additional 100,000 support staff and military families worldwide will be part of the realignment.
The changes are expected to be announced by President George W. Bush at a speech to the Convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cinncinatti, Ohio, on Monday.
Although Germany will remain home to the largest contingent of American forces on the continent, both army divisions now based there the 1st Armoured and the 1st Infantry could be moved to US bases.
Germany will continue to be home to sophisticated training and command facilities and to a mobile infantry force which will be equipped with the new light-armoured Stryker vehicles and is expected to form the core of a restructured European presence.
The Bush administration has been re-evaluating the US military's global posture almost since its first days in office. Senior Pentagon officials emphasised that the move was not intended as a punishment for Germany's lack of support in the Iraq war.
In Asia, the reduction is expected to include the 3,500-soldier brigade from South Korea, which was recently deployed to Iraq.
There will also be a shift of some European command headquarters. The navy's European HQ, which has been in London since the second world war, will be moved to Naples.
----
U.S. Military Helicopter Crashes in Japan
August 13, 2004
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Helicopter-Crash.html?pagewanted=all
TOKYO (AP) -- A U.S. military helicopter crashed on a university campus in southern Japan on Friday, and all three crew members were hospitalized, police said.
The helicopter crashed at Okinawa International University, in Ginowan city on the southernmost island of Okinawa, Okinawa state police spokesman Takeshi Hori said.
Shunei Nakamura, spokesman for the Ginowan Fire Department, said all three crew members aboard were taken to a U.S. military hospital. None of their injuries were life-threatening, he said.
There were no reports of any injuries on the ground, Nakamura said. A U.S. military spokesman at U.S. Forces Okinawa declined immediate comment.
Atsuhiko Kawano, a spokesman for Japan's Defense Facilities Administration Agency, said witnesses reported that the CH-53 helicopter grazed a building at the university before smashing into the ground and catching fire.
Public broadcaster NHK said 20 university employees were in the building at the time but none were injured. Television footage of the scene showed a single black propeller lying across a narrow city street, pinning a motorbike under it.
The CH-53 is used by the U.S. Marines for transport of equipment and supplies, mostly for amphibious assaults.
A U.S. Forces Okinawa spokesman declined immediate comment. Phones at Okinawa International University rang unanswered.
The crash comes only days after a U.S. surveillance plane on a training mission crashed on an uninhabited island near Iwo Jima on Tuesday. Four aviators were killed.
About 50,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan under a security treaty, two-thirds of them on Okinawa, about 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo.
--------
U.S. Military Helicopter Crashes on Japan Campus
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-crash-japan-usa-military.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.S. military helicopter crashed on the grounds of a university on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa on Friday, injuring four military personnel, but there were no civilian injuries.
The incident, which took place during the summer school vacation, is likely to fan resentment of the U.S. military on Okinawa, which is home to over half the U.S. personnel in Japan.
A fire department official in the city of Ginowan said the four injured were believed to be the helicopter's crew but that details were unclear. He added that all were conscious but could not comment further on their injuries.
Television footage showed firefighters spraying charred wreckage with white foam.
Witnesses quoted by Japanese media said the helicopter brushed a building on the campus of Okinawa International University and crashed, bursting into flames. Some 20 people were in the building at the time but none was injured.
``There was a huge bang, and then flames began to rise,'' a student was quoted by NHK national television as saying.
U.S. military officials were not immediately available for comment but a Ginowan city official said the helicopter was believed to be a CH-53 transport helicopter.
Okinawa, a string of tropical islands 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, is home to some 26,000 of the 48,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan.
It is Japan's poorest prefecture and many people there feel they shoulder too much of the burden of maintaining the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the pillar of Tokyo's post-war diplomacy.
Periodic crimes by U.S. servicemen, including the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl by three military personnel, have fed the resentment.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE
-------- homeland security
White House Warns of Terror Strike
Preelection Threat Not Based on New Data, Official Says
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61300-2004Aug12.html
The Bush administration believes more strongly than ever that al Qaeda terrorists plan to try to influence the presidential race with a massive preelection attack, a strike that is more likely to come in August or September than in October, a White House official said yesterday.
The official ratcheted up administration warnings of an election-related attack on a day when President Bush and Vice President Cheney were on the campaign trail contending that Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) would be a weak commander in chief. Some Democrats accuse the White House of issuing repeated terrorism warnings to inspire fear so voters will hesitate to change leaders with the nation under threat.
The White House official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the government had not gleaned any new information about political motives for an attack since the spring, when administration officials began saying they were concerned about an attack in conjunction with the Nov. 2 election. Nothing to date indicates "an imminent operation," the official said.
Administration officials said over the weekend that they believe at least part of the plot has been disrupted with recent arrests and computers seizures.
Nevertheless, the official referred to "the preelection plot" and said the government has intelligence in which suspected terrorists "were talking about the election."
"The beat keeps building," the official said. "You will get intelligence which suggests they're targeting the election time frame. . . . In addition to that, you get other intelligence that suggests there is planning for an ongoing operation that may not specifically mention the election."
Asked whether the terrorists appear to have a candidate of choice, the official replied that the goal "is being seen to have influenced the election, as opposed to a particular person." The official invoked the elections in Spain, where the ruling party was thrown out in March after terrorist train bombings that killed 191 people three days earlier.
"They took an enormous boost from the outcome of the Spanish election," the official said. The official said the intelligence pointed to a strike this month or next, although it could come in October.
The warning came 11 days after the administration announced it had discovered plans for attacks on financial buildings in Washington, New York and Newark. The buildings were cased years ago, but officials said the information was viewed recently on a computer seized in Pakistan.
"No question some of this information was accessed in 2004 and indications are more recently than January -- spring," the official said. However, the official added, "I have seen no indication of an imminent operation."
--------
Charities to Contest U.S. Terrorism Screening Requirement
By Jacqueline L. Salmon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61327-2004Aug12?language=printer
New federal rules that require charities and nonprofits to screen all their employees and others for any connections to terrorist organizations are roiling the charitable world, and yesterday 16 national nonprofit groups vowed to fight the regulations.
A coalition of nonprofits -- including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Sierra Club and Amnesty International USA -- announced an effort to try to force the agency that administers the multimillion-dollar giving campaign among federal workers to rescind the requirement.
"We believe that this policy is both misguided and dangerous," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, which last year received about $500,000 from the Combined Federal Campaign.
In protest, the ACLU has quit the campaign, and officials said yesterday that a suit is planned against the CFC, alleging that the rule violates ACLU employee privacy rights.
Two other coalition members, Amnesty International USA and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said yesterday that they have also dropped out of the CFC because of the requirement.
"We are certainly against terrorism," said Chip Pitts, board chairman of Amnesty International USA, which received about $350,000 from federal employees through last fall's CFC campaign. "The problem with these lists is that they are notoriously riddled with errors [and] they are subjective."
The focus of the uproar is a relatively obscure rule change by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the CFC. It requires the more than 2,000 charities applying to participate in the CFC, which raised $248.3 million from federal workers and military personnel last year, to certify they do not "knowingly employ" suspected terrorists.
The certification requires charities to consult lists maintained by the federal government. But, the charities say, the lists are voluminous and confusing -- containing tens of thousands of names, many of which sound similar to or are common Muslim and other ethnic names.
The OPM has declined repeated requests to comment on the issue, citing threatened litigation by the ACLU.
But in a letter sent Monday to the ACLU, the OPM defended its action. The letter, signed by Mara T. Patermaster, director of CFC operations at OPM, said the agency is required to impose the screening under an executive order signed by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The order prohibited Americans from having financial ties with suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations.
"OPM feels a responsibility to ensure that it does not facilitate, through the CFC, the transfer of funds donated by Federal employees through or to the hands of persons designated for their ties to terrorists or terrorist supporters," the letter said.
The OPM directive is the latest in a number of efforts by government agencies and private philanthropic groups to ensure that neither public nor private dollars make their way to terrorist organizations.
The role of charities in funding terrorists has become the focus of increasing concern. Late last month, the Justice Department announced the indictment of the nation's largest Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, and seven of its top officials on charges that they funneled millions of dollars to groups associated with Hamas, a Palestinian group that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.
In recent months, many government agencies and private philanthropic organizations have begun requiring the nonprofit groups they fund to verify that they do not support terrorist organizations.
Earlier this year, the $2 billion Charles Stewart Mott Foundation began requiring the organizations it funds to certify that they do not engage in "terrorist activity." And the $10 billion Ford Foundation daily checks the names of its 4,000 grantees against the government lists.
Ford spokesman Alex Wilde said the group is legally bound under the USA Patriot Act to check whether its grantees are on the government lists of terrorists. "Beyond that," he added, "it's just the right thing to do."
Some of the provisions are drawing protests from a variety of charity officials, who say they are increasingly concerned that the government's zeal to stamp out terrorist-supported charities is hurting legitimate groups.
A half-dozen nonprofit organizations that receive millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development have asked the agency to revise its detailed requirements.
USAID requires each aid group to certify "it has not provided and does not knowingly provide material support" to groups that appear on lists of suspected terrorists.
Aid groups that work with thousands of small overseas nonprofit organizations say the provision is overly broad and unrealistic.
The requirement is "just legally a bit over the top," said Michael Wiest, chief of staff of Catholic Relief Services, which last year received about $350 million from USAID. The group works with about 50,000 agencies abroad each year.
Wiest emphasized that his organization supports the U.S. war on terror but said that the USAID requirement is "asking you to certify things that no one could conceivably ever know."
However, Jim Kunder, USAID's assistant administrator for Asia and the Near East, who has been negotiating with aid groups to revise the requirement, said that under the USA Patriot Act, USAID must make such demands.
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Official: No Evidence Attack Is Imminent
August 13, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Terror-Threats.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two weeks ago, when Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned of possible al-Qaida attacks, the ``where'' was very specific: financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J. The ``when,'' however, was a mystery. And since Ridge's announcement, the Bush administration has discovered no evidence of imminent plans by terrorists to attack U.S. buildings, a White House official acknowledged Thursday.
Some documents and computer files seized in al-Qaida raids included surveillance reports of the financial buildings during 2000 and 2001, which prompted warnings Aug. 1 from the White House about possible threats. But nothing in the documents themselves has suggested any attack was planned soon, the official said.
``I have not seen an indication of an imminent operation,'' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity with reporters from nearly a dozen news organizations. Investigators are still poring over volumes of the seized information.
Immediately after the warning, police sealed off some streets near the Citigroup Center building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York; put employees at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington through extra security checks; and added barricades and a heavily armed presence around Prudential Financial Inc.'s headquarters in Newark.
In Washington, Capitol Police blocked all traffic flow near the building and began searching vehicles, even though no new threats to the Capitol had been found. District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams protested the measures, calling them ``unworkable and unacceptable.''
Subway riders in Washington have had to get used to sharing their commutes with police bearing machine guns. New Yorkers have been agitated by FBI warnings of threats posed by helicopters and limousines, while city authorities are beefing up security in advance of the Republican National Convention, which begins Aug. 30.
The White House homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, told ``Fox News Sunday'' last weekend that authorities believe discovery of the surveillance has disrupted al-Qaida's plans to carry out the attacks on the financial buildings.
The FBI and local police still haven't determined whether the surveillance was performed by a single person or several people, and the FBI has not yet identified anyone involved in the surveillance, the White House official said Thursday, adding that the detailed reconnaissance indicated ``an awful lot of time and energy put into it.''
The surveillance records had been accessed for unknown purposes this spring, months later than authorities had previously disclosed, the official said. The government had said earlier that some files had been reviewed as recently as January.
Another administration official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House still would have issued the terror alerts even if it had known at the time that the surveillance documents did not point to an imminent operation.
The administration remains deeply concerned about information uncovered separately in the spring suggesting al-Qaida was plotting a major attack inside the United States -- perhaps in August or September -- to disrupt the elections, the first official said.
None of the documents or computer files recovered in the recent raids in Pakistan mentioned any election-related plots, the same official said.
This official said unspecified intelligence indicates al-Qaida's plans for an attack before the election were ``more than merely aspirational'' but declined to be more specific because it might reveal the information's source. Timing was unclear, the official said, acknowledging that intelligence agencies ``wish we had a sense.''
Senior U.S. officials -- including Townsend, Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice -- have expressed similar concerns since March about possible al-Qaida efforts to disrupt the U.S. elections.
Townsend said Sunday on CBS' ``Face the Nation'' that she believes the surveillance of the U.S. financial buildings might be related to the election-period threat.
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Feds Try to Reassure Arabs on Census Data
August 13, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Census-Arabs.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal officials said Friday the Census Bureau is reporting demographic data about Arab-Americans to a Homeland Security agency but only population numbers and not names, addresses or other private details.
Responding to requests over the past couple of years from the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, the Census Bureau has provided files that included a count of U.S. residents of Arab descent in certain ZIP codes. Names or street addresses were not included.
Customs and census officials say no rules were violated. Such requests are common, and the data already were available on the bureau's Web site, Census Bureau deputy director Hermann Habermann said Friday.
Customs commissioner Robert Bonner, who met with several Arab-American groups Friday about the matter, said in one instance, information was used to help determine at what U.S. airports to post signs in languages other than English.
In another case, customs officials tried to use the data in a brainstorming session about cargo security, but the figures proved useless and were purged from the department's computers, Bonner said.
While the reasons may be valid, the information-sharing still may shake the confidence Arab-Americans have in the census and renew worries among some people that such government surveys constitute invasions of privacy, said Helen Hatab Samhan, executive director of the Arab American Institute Foundation.
The exchange between census and customs employees was made public through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington-based privacy group.
``There's already an atmosphere and climate where Arab-Americans are seen as suspicious, regardless of how long they have been living here or whether or not they are under investigation,'' Samhan said Friday.
``What we worry about is that this kind of revelation somehow supports that,'' she said. ``What we want to do is work with the bureau and other agencies to make sure there are not other, malicious uses.''
Bonner said his agency never asked for the ZIP code file. According to EPIC, the data shared also included a count of U.S. residents of Arab ancestry in many cities with 10,000 or more people.
Still, to deal with any misgivings, Bonner noted he has implemented a new rule requiring that future data requests be approved by an assistant commissioner in his office. Previously, such requests were made informally and required no approval.
``We do not believe what we did was incorrect, but the issue is valid,'' Habermann said. ``People are concerned that it not be used to harm groups. That's not blown out of proportion.''
-------- immigration / refugees
IMMIGRATION
U.N. Report Cites Harassment at American Airports of Asylum Seekers
August 13, 2004
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/national/13immig.html?pagewanted=all&position=
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - A confidential report conducted by the United Nations in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security has found that airport inspectors with the power to summarily deport illegal immigrants have sometimes intimidated and handcuffed travelers fleeing persecution, discouraged some from seeking political asylum and often lacked an understanding of asylum law.
Homeland Security officials say they have responded to the problems identified in the report, which was completed late last year and obtained this week by The New York Times. But the study highlights the challenges facing the department as it grants Border Patrol agents sweeping new powers to deport illegal immigrants from the borders with Mexico and Canada without providing them the opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge.
Until now, Border Patrol agents typically delivered illegal immigrants to the custody of the immigration courts, where judges determined whether they should be deported or remain in the United States. Homeland Security officials, who announced the policy shift this week, said border agents would be trained before deporting illegal immigrants to ensure that asylum seekers and legitimate travelers were not mistakenly sent home.
In its report, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees commended the department for working to safeguard people fleeing persecution, noting that most airport inspectors properly identified asylum seekers and correctly referred them for further interviews to ensure that their cases would be heard by an immigration judge. But the United Nations noted that problems remained at American airports - where summary deportations have occurred since 1997 - even after inspectors received training about the importance of protecting asylum seekers.
The report found that inspectors at airports often failed to provide certified translators for asylum seekers who did not speak English, improperly notified consulates about the identity and detention of immigrants seeking asylum, and in 14 cases mistakenly concluded that travelers who expressed a credible fear of persecution were not entitled to apply for asylum.
Joung-ah Ghedini, a spokeswoman for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, expressed concern about the expansion of summary deportations to the nation's borders. Ms. Ghedini said the United Nations wanted to know more about the training of border agents to ensure that asylum seekers were protected.
"What we're concerned about is that we don't know many of the details of what will happen when the expansion of expedited removal is implemented at the borders,'' said Ms. Ghedini, who declined to discuss the details of the report.
Commissioner Robert C. Bonner, who heads the customs and border protection unit at the Department of Homeland Security, said the training for Border Patrol agents would protect asylum seekers, who are entitled to have their cases reviewed by an immigration judge if they express a credible fear of persecution.
Mr. Bonner said the training curriculum had been approved by the department's civil rights office and would begin next week in Tucson and the following week in Laredo, Tex., the first places along the border where summary deportations are expected to begin. Supervisors will receive two days of training and Border Patrol agents will each typically receive a one-day, eight-hour training session over the next few weeks, officials said.
"We want to make sure we roll this out and do this right and appropriately,'' Mr. Bonner said in an interview. "It's our responsibility to make sure that there's adequate training, including any refresher training that might be necessary, so that persons that do potentially have asylum claims are appropriately referred. It's certainly something we take very seriously.''
In conducting its study, United Nations officials reviewed more than 300 case files; interviewed dozens of inspectors, supervisors and asylum officers; and sat in on more than 100 interviews with asylum seekers at airports in New York, Newark, Miami and Los Angeles.
The Department of Homeland Security granted the United Nations access to internal documents, staff members and asylum seekers on the condition that the report not be released to the public after it was completed in late October. The study was provided to The New York Times by a person unaffiliated with the United Nations who was concerned about the government's plan to expand summary deportations to the country's land borders.
In its report, the United Nations discovered that many inspectors held negative views of asylum seekers, viewing them as frauds trying to enter the United States under false pretenses. Such attitudes, the report concluded, resulted in instances where inspectors intimidated asylum seekers or treated them with derision.
At Kennedy International Airport in New York, asylum seekers were routinely handcuffed and restrained with belly chains and leg restraints. In one instance there, a Liberian asylum seeker was ordered to strip naked to determine whether he had scars consistent with torture. The inspectors then allegedly ridiculed him, using racial and sexual taunts.
"With regard to treatment of asylum-seekers, the overuse of restraints, such as at J.F.K., and the frequency of negative, and at times hostile, attitudes towards asylum-seekers is of significant concern,'' the report said.
The study also described two instances in which inspectors encouraged asylum seekers not to pursue asylum claims. "These incidents, even if isolated, are extremely troubling given the risks of returning someone to a country of possible persecution,'' it said.
Ms. Ghedini said Homeland Security officials had addressed some issues in the report, including making efforts to improve training. "Generally speaking, we have seen positive cooperation and collaboration,'' she said. But she said some problems remained and were the subject of continuing discussions. She said her agency had also requested a meeting with the department to discuss the plan to expand summary deportations - a process known as expedited removal - to the land borders.
Under the new policy, border agents will summarily deport illegal immigrants caught within 100 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders who have spent up to 14 days within the United States.
Officials said the agents would not focus on deporting Mexicans and Canadians, who will still, for the most part, have their cases heard in immigration court. The agents will concentrate instead on immigrants from other countries. Senior officials said they planned to evaluate the process in Tucson and Laredo before expanding it to other sections of the border.
-------- police
Top Mexican Law Enforcement Official Quits
August 13, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Mexico-Cabinet.html
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's public safety secretary, Alejandro Gertz Manero, resigned Friday from President Vicente Fox's increasingly restive Cabinet.
Gertz, 64, a lawyer, university rector and anti-drug activist, had been appointed to the post when Fox took office in December 2000. As chief of public security, he oversaw federal police who patrol highways and staff prisons.
The government news agency Notimex said Gertz was resigning for personal reasons; Fox's spokespeople were unable to immediately confirm that. Other recent Cabinet changes appear to have reflected frustration with a lack of progress in Fox's reform agenda or government officials' jockeying for the 2006 presidential elections.
Among the resignations, Energy Secretary Felipe Calderon stepped down in June after Fox publicly criticized him for starting to campaign for the race. Jorge Castaneda, who resigned as foreign relations secretary in January 2003, has also has declared his candidacy.
Fox has proposed sweeping judicial reforms that would further consolidate federal police agencies while revamping Mexico's trial system. Crime has become an increasingly important issue in Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the capital in June to protest kidnappings and violent crime -- the largest protest in recent Mexican history.
-------- prisons / prisoners
Many Local Officials Now Make Inmates Pay Their Own Way
August 13, 2004
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/national/13prison.html?pagewanted=all&position=
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich., Aug. 6 - Crime doesn't pay, but criminals just might.
That is what more and more local governments are hoping, as they grapple with soaring prison populations and budget pressures.
To help cover the costs of incarceration, corrections officers and politicians are more frequently billing inmates for their room and board, an idea popular with voters.
Here in suburban Macomb County, 25 miles north of Detroit, Sheriff Mark Hackel has one of the most successful of these programs in the nation. Last year, the sheriff's department collected nearly $1.5 million in what are being called "pay to stay" fees from many of the 22,000 people who spent time in the county jail.
Inmates are billed for room and board on a sliding scale of $8 to $56 a day, depending on ability to pay. When they are released, the sheriff's office will go to court to collect the unpaid bills, seizing cars or putting some inmates back in jail. The wife of one inmate, a Chrysler truck factory worker who is serving half a year for drunk driving, dropped off a check for $7,212 this week to cover part of his bill, the largest single amount ever collected by the sheriff.
Though the idea is not new - and in fact federal prisons adopted a similar policy years ago that has fallen into disuse - the squeeze on local budgets in recent years has propelled more local officials to assess incarceration fees. In all, more than half of states collect some sort of fees in their prisons, according to the American Correctional Association.
But the fees raise thorny ethical and constitutional issues, say advocates of prisoner rights and some other corrections experts. The costs place an unfair burden on a population that is almost by definition impoverished, making it harder for inmates to get back on their feet after release, some groups argue. Others contend that the fees deprive inmates of due process or constitute cruel and unusual punishment. In a few cases, courts have sided with the inmates on specific issues.
Collecting fees is also an entirely different matter from levying them. Some places profess so much difficulty that they have concluded the administrative costs outweigh the benefits. Even if the programs bring in revenue, there may be other costs.
"The simple, stark truth is that most inmates are not drug kingpins with lots of assets,'' said Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general. "In some cases, seizing assets may be counterproductive because it will interfere with their rehabilitation."
More than 40 states have enacted legislation allowing their jails to charge fees, according to a survey by the Jail Information Center of the National Institute of Corrections, the research arm of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Not all those states have begun collecting fees.
There are no national data on how much is being collected, reflecting the patchwork of policies, but fees are being levied for booking and processing and co-payments on medical treatment as well as room and board.
The New Jersey Legislature is considering a proposal by the state's corrections commissioner, Devon Brown, to allow the state to collect up to $28,000 a year, the full cost of a year in prison. And the Indianapolis City-County Council is debating a proposal to collect $30 a day from inmates to recoup the cost of housing.
New York generally charges only those inmates in work-release programs, taking a small part of their wages. Connecticut enacted a law in 1998 to charge for the cost of incarceration, and has collected $1.5 million in the last four years.
"I think these fees are an easy political sell, but they are a chimera," said Pat Nolan, the president of Justice Fellowship, which describes itself as an organization that works with government officials to refashion the criminal justice system in line with biblical principles. Mr. Nolan, a former Republican leader of the California Legislature, served two years in federal prison for racketeering in connection with campaign fund-raising.
"The fees are sold with the idea that they will help offset the costs of incarceration, but practically they don't bring in much revenue," Mr. Nolan said. "And then when these inmates come out, they have these huge bills, which puts them in a further hole, making it harder for them to get a car or decent housing.''
Some fees have been successfully challenged. In 2002, a federal court forced a sheriff in Cincinnati to refund more than $1 million in room fees from people who had been detained in jail but had not been convicted, saying the collection from them was a violation of due process. In Massachusetts, a judge ruled this month that an old state law made it illegal for a sheriff to collect room and board from inmates there.
Where money is collected, it makes only a slight dent in prison costs. Even in Macomb County, Sheriff Hackel says that the $1.5 million collected is small given his jail's annual operating cost of $38 million. The program to collect the bills costs $120,000 a year, said Michelle Sanborn, the jail administrator.
"But the fees still bring in a substantial amount of money, and the public loves them," Sheriff Hackel said. "What we say is, 'Why should we as taxpayers have to pay the whole cost of incarcerating these people who break the law?' "
Some other counties that charge for incarceration have found that the costs of collecting exceed revenue.
The jail for Lexington, Ky., and surrounding Fayette County charges a $20 booking and administrative fee but not a daily fee, said Donald Leach, the senior administrative officer for the jail. "It's a great platform issue for people running for sheriff to impose these fees," Mr. Leach said. "But it's my experience that very few jails that charge a per diem make any money."
The inmates, he said, quickly learn not to put money into their jail commissary accounts because the jail would debit the accounts to pay the fees. The money usually comes from their pockets at the time of arrest, from friends and relatives, and in some prisons from work programs.
"I think a jail that collects 10 percent of its fees is doing very well," Mr. Leach said.
Hugh Graf, a spokesman for the Broward County Sheriff's Department in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said that state law authorized the county to collect a $10 booking fee and a $3 daily subsistence fee, but that the sheriff's department had never put a lien on a released inmate's property or tried to collect unpaid bills.
"The idea of going after overdue fees is less cost-effective than just eating the costs," Mr. Graf said.
Back in Macomb County, Ms. Sanborn says it was hard to track down a former inmate who owed for room and board, and even after finding him, it could be hard to prove that he had assets. Her office subpoenas an offender to show up in court with copies of financial records.
"If they don't show up for the subpoena,'' Ms. Sanborn said, "the judge issues a bench warrant for their arrest, and we can pick them up and put them back in jail. Miraculously, the money usually appears."
Not surprisingly, inmates in Macomb County are more than a little irritated at being told to pay for lodging in a double bunk in a 7-by-13-foot cell, and a menu of 2,800 calories a day that typically includes a turkey sandwich and soup for lunch.
DeJuan C. Hunter, an 18-year-old from Detroit who is in the Macomb County jail awaiting trial on charges of receiving and concealing stolen property, said that he had little money when he was arrested and that the jail took $12 out of his account for a booking fee. "I couldn't buy toothpaste or deodorant," he said.
Mr. Hunter said he did not have money to buy stamps, so he could not write to his mother to ask for money.
"I had to wait three weeks till a friend got out and told my mother," Mr. Hunter said. "This is unconstitutional. They are taking my money before I've been tried and convicted.''
As a pretrial detainee, Mr. Hunter is not being assessed for room and board, but if he is convicted, he will be billed for all his days of detention.
Gary Kervin, 44, was sentenced to 30 days in the Macomb jail for failure to pay child support and had a copy of a court order to pay $20 a day for each of his days in the jail.
"I don't put any money into my account, because they will just take it," Mr. Kervin said. "I think this system is unjust, because the judge has already given us our sentence, and the fees are on top of that. The only way I can pay is for my common-law wife to pay, and she just works part time at a nursing home. So it is the families that suffer."
Inmates sentenced in federal courts and sent into the federal prison system are supposed to pay a sizable share of their costs of incarceration, based on their resources, according to various laws and guidelines. But the bureau says that if a judge imposes any fine it is prevented from assessing a fee, and that fines are imposed most of the time.
Federal judges and probation officers said there had been conflicting decisions by different United States Circuit Courts of Appeal on the constitutionality of room and board fees.
Because of the legal confusion, the Bureau of Prisons collected only $461 last year in incarceration fees from its 164,000 inmates, and judges imposed $3 million in fines to cover housing, said Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the bureau.
Martha Stewart, who was sentenced to five months in prison, five months of home confinement and a $30,000 fine, will not be paying for her incarceration. Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney's office in Manhattan, said Ms. Stewart's fine was based only on the sentencing guidelines for her crime and her assets. It was not intended to go toward her cost of imprisonment, Ms. Gaffney said.
-------- terrorism
THE TERRORISTS
Officials Investigate a Qaeda Suspect's Shadowy Life
August 13, 2004
By PATRICK E. TYLER
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/international/europe/13hindi.html?pagewanted=all
LONDON, Aug. 12 - Abu Issa al-Hindi, the operative of Al Qaeda who American officials say is one of 13 men arrested in raids last week in England, has lived a life of subterfuge and survival.
As an Islamic fighter in the 1990's he took part in a guerrilla campaign against the Indian Army in the rugged and perilous terrain of Kashmir. As an instructor in the Qaeda terrorist indoctrination camps of Afghanistan, he passed on his martial skills to the next generation of volunteers. And as a reconnaissance agent who slipped in and out of the United States in 2000 and 2001, he helped build an archive on the vulnerability of American financial centers on behalf of the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Much of his history as a reputed Qaeda leader in Britain remains shrouded, but fragments of Mr. Hindi's life as a young man born into a Hindu household in Britain can be pieced together from his own writings, from descriptions attributed to acquaintances and to evidence gathered by the Sept. 11 commission in the United States.
Although British officials refuse to confirm the identities of any of the men they arrested last week, citing concerns about prejudicial publicity before they have been charged, American officials say that Mr. Hindi is among the suspects being held at Paddington Green, the high security police station in West London.
No photograph has been released of Mr. Hindi, said to be in his mid-30's and about 5 feet 5 inches tall. Not much is known about his parents, presumably immigrants to Britain like millions of other South Asians who came here in the last century to escape political turmoil or improve their circumstances. They have not emerged to speak about their son.
According to some reports, Mr. Hindi was one of the young militants who prayed during the 1990's at the Finsbury Park Mosque, which was under the control of Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian-born extremist who was arrested last month on an extradition warrant from the United States. He is sought there in connection with the 1998 kidnapping of tourists, including two Americans, in Yemen.
Mr. Hindi is said to have converted to the Islamic faith at 20 and shortly thereafter, in the early 1990's, went off to fight for the cause of Muslims who opposed Indian rule in divided Kashmir. It was Mr. Hindi's memoir of those years with the mujahedeen, "The Army of Medinah in Kashmir," published by a small Islamic news agency in Birmingham, that first brought him some notice in England's small but growing community of Islamic militants. It may have also attracted the attention of Britain's domestic spy agency, MI5.
"Per chance Muslims are frightened to advance and take the initiative," he wrote, "afraid of being branded as terrorists or deviants, by the people who engineered human destruction themselves - the enemies of Islam."
Mr. Hindi refers to the United States, Britain, France and other Western nations as the great "interfering" nations, and he admonishes his followers that "great stealth is required" to "attempt to bring one of these interfering nations to its knees."
One way of doing so is infiltration from within by people like himself, he said.
"The indigenous believers that reside in these meddling countries" can be a critical factor because they "understand the language, culture, area and common practices of the enemy whom they coexist amongst."
For British officials, Mr. Hindi's extremism and alienation from British society is an alarming feature within the broader disaffection that British and other European governments now observe among the offspring of South Asian immigrants and immigrants from other Muslim societies. These young European Muslims grow up on soccer, pop music and cricket, but many who come of age feel the strong pull of fundamentalist clerics who preach the glories of struggle against Western conventions and of the ecstasy of martyrdom. A major alarm sounded this year when a some young Britons of Pakistani origin were arrested in late March after the police detected their acquisition of a half ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a key ingredient for bomb-making. Police officials say the group was in contact with a Canadian man, also of Pakistani origin, who was teaching them how to make a detonator for a bomb. A criminal case against the group is now pending.
Mr. Hindi started his career as a holy warrior much earlier and joined the ranks of Al Qaeda before returning home, American officials say.
In his memoir from Kashmir, he described the grueling treks with a band of mujahedeen through treacherous mountain terrain and in guerrilla combat against Indian Army forces deployed in camps along the Line of Control in Kashmir.
In one passage, he sings the praises of a fellow fighter, who battled hand-to-hand with an Indian soldier until the mujahedeen "fired a round into the head of the army man" and "with his victory complete, beheaded him."
As a unseasoned Islamic fighter, Mr. Hindi described how he discovered the rules of warfare the hard way. Marching through exposed valleys subjected the fighters to attack from the surrounding heights. Being trapped by enemy fire raining down from above "is highly perilous," he said, "and should be avoided at all costs."
A preferable mode of operation, he explained, is "to try and gain the upper hand by being situated over and above the enemy."
Using light weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades sometimes filled with chili powder or gasoline to enhance their effect (chili powder creates a "tear gas" effect, he wrote; gasoline adds a "fireball"), the Islamic fighters were little more than a harassing force in the region, Mr. Hindi said.
He said 85 percent of one mujahedeen faction was wiped out during three years of fighting. He scorned Pakistan's intelligence services , which he said were only too willing to send young Islamic fighters against the Indian Army as a way of "killing two birds with one stone."
After his experiences in Kashmir and the training camps of Afghanistan, Mr. Hindi returned to London. A jacket note from his memoir says he "now resides in South Thailand, where he emigrated to in 1998, having married there." But the biographical material also says that at some point he returned to Afghanistan.
That is where American officials believe he came into contact with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was engaged in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.
But the World Trade Center was not the target Mr. Mohammed was studying, according to the Sept. 11 commission.
"He continued to consider other possibilities for terrorist attacks," the report states. "For example, he sent Qaeda operative Eisa al-Britani to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to learn about the jihad in Southeast Asia." (Eisa al-Britani is an alias for Mr. Hindi, American officials say)
At the direction of Osama bin Laden in early 2001, Mr. Hindi was dispatched to the United States "to case potential economic and 'Jewish' targets in New York City."
In July, the Pakistani authorities arrested a young computer specialist, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. In his possession was a cache of computer disks containing a huge archive of detailed information about the vulnerabilities of America financial centers in New York, New Jersey and Washington.
A senior Western official in London said the question that American and British intelligence officials are trying to answer is whether Mr. Hindi's reconnaissance missions of 2001 ended or were handed off to other Qaeda operatives who have yet to be discovered.
Heather Timmons contributed reporting for this article.
-------- torture
CACI Finds No Torture Involvement
Arlington Firm's Employee Was Named in Army Report
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61480-2004Aug12.html
CACI International Inc. said yesterday that an internal investigation of its operations in Iraq turned up no evidence that its employees were involved in the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
The Arlington government contractor has been under scrutiny since one of its employees, Steven A. Stefanowicz, was named in an internal Army report made public in April. The report said Stefanowicz, an interrogator working with the Army, encouraged soldiers to set conditions to facilitate interrogations and said he "clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse."
CACI said its investigation, conducted by the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, has not found "credible or tangible" evidence supporting the claims in the report prepared by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. The company described the investigation's results as "preliminary" and said its probe is still ongoing.
The findings are based "on a combination of interviewing CACI personnel, obtaining publicly available documents and asking the government for information," CACI spokeswoman Jody Brown said in an interview. Most of the interviews were done in person, Brown said, but she declined to say whether they took place in Iraq.
Continued conflict in Iraq complicated the investigation as did a prohibition of on-site interviews, the company said. CACI said it had only limited access to information controlled by the Pentagon.
Stefanowicz's lawyer said his client, who is still a CACI employee, is "heartened" by the company's report.
"While [Stefanowicz] is gratified by these findings, he is not surprised," Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., a lawyer with Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin in Philadelphia, said in a writtenstatement. Since the release of the internal Army report, he said, "no evidence has emerged corroborating the vague allegations made against Mr. Stefanowicz in the Taguba Report." Last week the company was awarded a new contract worth up to $23 million to continue providing interrogators and other intelligence services to the Army in Iraq. "The message from our customer has been consistent throughout and this is what they have shared with us: They are pleased with our work," Brown said.
--------
INQUIRIES
Private Company Finds No Evidence Its Interrogators Took Part in Prison Abuse
August 13, 2004
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/politics/13abuse.html?pagewanted=all
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - A company that supplies civilian interrogators to the American military in Iraq said Thursday that its own investigation and information supplied by the Army had produced no "credible or tangible evidence" so far that its employees were involved in the abuses of prisoners there.
The company, CACI International Inc., said in a news release that it was cooperating with government investigations of the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq, that it continued to conduct its own internal investigation and that it would not tolerate illegal behavior by any employees.
On Tuesday, the company announced that its contract to provide interrogation services in Iraq had been extended by the Army for four months at a value of $15.3 million, with two optional extensions worth up to $3.8 million each.
In March, a report on the Abu Ghraib inquiries conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba said that some CACI employees, as well as some military intelligence personnel, might have been "either directly or indirectly responsible" for the abuses at the prison, which occurred last year and were disclosed in January. Since then, several military police personnel have been charged with involvement in the mistreatment of prisoners, while a separate investigation has continued into whether military intelligence personnel at the prison, or private contractors or others were involved.
The lawyer for Steven Stefanowicz, one of the CACI employees under scrutiny since the Taguba report, issued a statement saying Mr. Stefanowicz was "heartened" by the company's statement that it had found "no wrongdoing" by him.
"Mr. Stefanowicz continues to be employed by CACI and the Army has not in any way suggested to CACI that Mr. Stefanowicz's employment should be terminated or altered in any way," said the statement by his lawyer, Henry B. Hockeimer Jr.
CACI, in its statement, said that "a few" employees had left the company after the Army requested that they not be kept in their positions in Iraq. However, the company said the reasons for their leaving did not involve abuse of detainees or any other misconduct at Abu Ghraib.
In its statement, CACI said it had "formally requested that the U.S. Army provide the company with any information it has concerning misconduct by CACI personnel in Iraq." The Baltimore Sun reported Thursday that one of the Army's investigations, due to be completed soon, would find that responsibility for the abuses went beyond the seven military police personnel charged so far, and that it would recommend disciplinary action against up to two dozen military personnel, including those in a military intelligence unit that was stationed at the prison.
The Sun reported that unidentified officials had said that nobody above the rank of colonel would face punishment. Pentagon officials said the report was not yet finished, and they could not describe its conclusions.
A spokesman for Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the Army had told him as well that the report was not yet completed. The committee has been holding hearings into the abuses at the prison.
Military police personnel who have been charged in the case have argued that their superiors, as well as military intelligence personnel, had condoned or tolerated harsh treatment of the prisoners.
In a memo obtained by defense lawyers, a military police commander advised Cpl. Charles A. Graner, the man investigators have called the ringleader of the abuse, that prisoners would try to provoke the guards. The memo praised Corporal Graner's leadership but advised him to study procedures to prevent mistreatment of detainees.
Kate Zernike contributed reporting from New York for this article.
-------- POLITICS
-------- budget
CBO Report: Bush Tax Cuts Tilted to Rich
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-campaign-taxes-cbo.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One-third of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, shifting more burden to middle-income taxpayers, congressional analysts said on Friday.
The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and calculations by congressional Democrats based on the CBO findings fueled the debate over the cuts between Bush and his Democratic challenger in November, Sen. John Kerry.
Using the CBO's figures, Democrats in Congress said the top 1 percent, with incomes averaging $1.2 million per year, will receive an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, and have seen their share of the total tax burden fall roughly 2 percentage points to 20.1 percent.
In contrast, the report showed that households in the middle 20 percent, with incomes averaging $57,000 per year, will receive an average cut of $1,090 while their share of the tax burden would move to 10.5 percent from 10.4 percent.
The CBO report said about two-thirds of the benefits from the cuts went to households in the top 20 percent, with an average income of $203,740.
People with earnings in the lowest 20 percent, which averaged $16,620, saw their effective tax rate fall to 5.2 percent from 6.7 percent, the CBO said. But Democrats said that meant their average tax cut was only $250.
Democrats said the CBO calculations, which they requested, confirm the view of independent tax analysts that the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 have heavily favored the wealthiest taxpayers.
``It is bad enough that George Bush has no plan to help middle-class families squeezed by declining wages and skyrocketing costs for healthcare, energy and college tuition,'' Kerry said in a statement.
``Now we find that he is deliberately stacking the deck against them. This is the straw that will break the back of middle-class families.''
But Republicans said the CBO numbers showed Bush has provided tax relief for people of all income levels.
Rep. Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, said the report showed Bush's tax cuts ``have made the tax code more progressive and taxpayers across the income spectrum will be saddled with higher tax burdens if the tax cuts are not made permanent.''
Bush has said the cuts provided crucial support to the U.S. economy after the Sept. 11 attacks and the three-year decline in U.S. stocks.
But Kerry, who wants to roll back the cuts for households whose incomes top $200,000 a year, has said the cuts did little for the economy, and helped cause the federal budget to swing from a more than $100 billion surplus in 2001 to a projected deficit exceeding $400 billion this year.
-------- propaganda wars
Bush Defends Moves on Sept. 11 'It's Easy to Second-Guess'
By John F. Harris and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61299-2004Aug12.html
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12 -- President Bush defended himself from Democratic nominee John F. Kerry's criticism that Bush reacted passively for several minutes after learning that the nation was under terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
"It's easy to second-guess a moment," Bush told CNN's Larry King, adding that his actions in the hours and days after the attacks showed that he quickly "recognized we were at war" and acted appropriately to mobilize the nation.
Kerry, picking up on an angle pursued by filmmaker Michael Moore in the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," has suggested he would have acted with more poise and decisiveness than Bush. The president continued reading with a group of Florida schoolchildren for several minutes after his chief of staff whispered news of the second attack in the president's ear.
Bush said he was collecting his thoughts while staying with the children, and suggested what he did in the first minutes is beside the point. "What is relevant," he said, "is whether or not I understand and understood then the stakes. . . . And I made a determination that we would do everything we could to bring those killers to justice and to protect the American people."
Shortly before the taped interview, Bush paid Nancy Reagan a courtesy call Thursday afternoon. White House aides described the visit as an hour-long exchange of pleasantries that did not touch on the former first lady's disagreement with the administration on the issue of stem cell research.
After the meeting, Reagan said, "I repeated my full support of his reelection and my hope that everyone will join in supporting his campaign."
He also appeared with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who drew laughs by saying he is planning on creating "Bodybuilders for Bush-Cheney" and "Girly-Men for Bush-Cheney" chapters in California for Bush.
Reagan had requested several weeks ago to see Bush the next time he was in California, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, and the president and first lady Laura Bush obliged by dropping by her Bel Air home. "They had a good discussion, and Mrs. Reagan gave the president and Mrs. Bush a quick tour of the home," McClellan said.
If past performance and current polls are any indicator, Bush does not have much chance of seriously contesting this Democratic-leaning state's 54 electoral votes, but he can still harvest its GOP donors for money. That was the main purpose of this trip. The Santa Monica fundraiser with Schwarzenegger reaped funds for the Republican National Committee. The occasionally syntax-mangling president joked that he and the governor, a native of Austria, "both have trouble with the English language."
Schwarzenegger's appearance with Bush continued the political dance between the president and the leader of the biggest state. Schwarzenegger will be a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention in New York this month, but he has not yet committed to campaign on Bush's behalf outside of California.
--------
THE NEWS MEDIA
Washington Post Rethinks Its Coverage of War Debate
August 13, 2004
By JACQUES STEINBERG
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/national/13media.html
The executive editor of The Washington Post, Leonard Downie Jr., said in yesterday's newspaper that he and other top editors had erred before the war in Iraq by not giving front-page prominence to more articles that cast doubt on the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
"We were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale,'' Mr. Downie said in a front-page article that assessed the newspaper's prewar coverage. "Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part.''
The Post article is one of several that have appeared in recent months in which news organizations have begun to publicly second-guess their coverage of the war. In May, The New York Times published a 1,220-word article in which the newspaper's editors acknowledged that in the run-up to war they had not been skeptical enough about articles that depended "at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on 'regime change' in Iraq whose credibility has come under increasing public debate.''
In late June, in an issue of The New Republic devoted to answering the question "Were We Wrong?'' an editorial acknowledged that "the central assumption underlying this magazine's strategic rationale for war now appears to have been wrong.''
News organizations are not restricting their hindsight to the war in Iraq, but also, in the case of The Herald-Leader of Lexington, Ky., looking at coverage of the civil rights movement four decades ago.
These journalistic mea culpas are being made in a news media landscape vastly different than it was just a few years ago, when newspapers were often reluctant to admit their errors. While surveys show that the public's generally low opinion of journalists and journalism has remained relatively constant, news organizations are now subject to more scrutiny, including by Web logs.
"One of the takeaways of this - both The Post's self analysis, and The Times's criticism of itself - is that they help demystify newspapers,'' said Jack Shafer, press critic of the online magazine Slate. "It shows readers, 'We are not oracles, we are not prophets, at newspapers.' ''
Among the examples cited yesterday in The Post of articles that, in hindsight, appear prescient but were played deep inside the paper at the time was one by Walter Pincus, a veteran investigative reporter. It ran on March 16, 2003, on page A17, under the headline, "U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms.''
Howard Kurtz wrote in The Post yesterday that the article, which questioned how much proof the administration had amassed of supposed Iraqi weapons stockpiles, "ran into stiff resistance from the paper's editors.''
Mr. Kurtz, the newspaper's media writer, added: "His piece ran only after assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, who was researching a book about the drive toward war, 'helped sell the story,' Pincus recalled. 'Without him, it would have had a tough time getting into the paper.' ''
"We did our job but we didn't do enough,'' Mr. Woodward said to Mr. Kurtz, "and I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder.''
For all of its contrition, Mr. Kurtz's article does not represent an official statement on behalf of The Post. In an interview yesterday, Steve Coll, the paper's managing editor, said that the idea for the article had been Mr. Kurtz's, and that he and Mr. Downie had recused themselves from editing it. Eugene Robinson, an assistant managing editor who is primarily responsible for the Style section, shepherded the article.
"We did not make a determination from our offices that we needed to commission an investigation into these issues,'' Mr. Coll said.
While Mr. Shafer and Michael Massing, a press critic and contributor to The New York Review of Books, applauded The Post just for undertaking such a review, regardless of its findings, Erik Wemple, editor of Washington City Paper, an alternative weekly, said he was left wanting more.
"My takeaway from it was, 'Hey, we didn't play things properly on the front page,' and to me that statement is not front-page news,'' Mr. Wemple said. "I think that minimizes dramatically the sort of mistakes The Post and the entire media made. They did not throw enough resources at the 'anti' argument.''
He added, "It's not just a placement problem.''
-------- ENERGY
-------- alternative energy
Wind Farm Projects Languish Without Federal Tax Incentive
August 13, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC, (ENS)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2004/2004-08-13-09.asp#anchor8
Wind projects totaling more than 2,000 megawatts (MW) in capacity - enough to power more than half a million American homes - are awaiting the expected renewal of a major federal tax incentive, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said Tuesday in its quarterly U.S. market outlook.
New projects in the pipeline amount to more than $2 billion in business, said AWEA executive director Randall Swisher, and they are ready to provide millions of dollars of tax revenues and hundreds of skilled jobs to rural counties around the nation, once Congress renews the wind energy production tax credit.
Wind farms ready for construction in California, Arizona, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa, Maine, and New York are on hold.
The wind industry installed a near-record 1,687 megawatts in 2003, but most new wind energy projects are on hold this year because of the uncertainty created by Congress' delay in renewing the tax incentive, AWEA said.
The industry has installed less than 30 MW of new capacity so far this year, and the trade group said it does not expect more than 350 MW total in new projects by the end of the year.
----
Utd Utilities gets approaches for renewables unit
REUTERS UK:
August 13, 2004
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/26575/story.htm
LONDON - British utility group United Utilities Plc (UU.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said this week it is considering several approaches for its renewables division, which press reports say could be sold for 80 million pounds ($146 million).
"We've had a number of responses and we are evaluating them," Chief Executive John Roberts, the head of Britain's biggest listed water utility, told Reuters.
Roberts declined to identify the parties behind the responses, and declined to put a value on the renewables unit, which includes landfill, wind-power and hydroelectric facilities. The company is being advised by Royal Bank of Canada.
However, press reports have said that well-known British financier Guy Hands is among the leading bidders for the unit. The reports have valued the renewables division at 80 million pounds.
Roberts said the possible sale of the unit was part of the company's policy of "recycling capital."
United Utilities is also among short-listed bidders for a set of UK gas networks put up for sale by National Grid Transco (NGT.L: Quote, Profile, Research) . Industry sources have said that the company has teamed up with Cheung Kong Infrastructure (1038.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) in its bid.
However, Roberts said he did not expect much progress in the auction in the near future.
"It's quite a long way to go," he said.
There has also been speculation that United Utilities may have to cut its dividend, but Roberts said that United Utilities' policy is to maintain the dividend in real terms.
"We are confident we can maintain the dividend in real terms until the end of this financial year," he said.
--------
Clean energy goes to college
Friday, August 13, 2004
By Fred Durso Jr.,
E/The Environmental Magazine
http://www.enn.com/news/2004-08-13/s_26512.asp
There is a new wave of activism sweeping across college campuses. Student groups are coordinating efforts to reduce fossil-fuel dependency by pushing for more renewable alternatives and putting forth specific goals for their colleges. They're also synchronizing their actions with other campuses across the United States, putting up a united front for cleaner energy.
"This is a growing movement, and more and more students are getting involved," said Billy Parish, director of the Climate Campaign, a network of 10 student environmental organizations. "What's driving it is the Bush administration's disastrous energy policy."
Some 125 schools took part in a National Day of Action last April 1. Also known as "Fossil Fools Day," the event included demonstrations promoting renewable energy and protests against the Bush administration's fossil-fuel-friendly energy plan.
College campuses are pollution factories. A recent Yale University study reports that the school emits more greenhouse gases than 32 developing countries. With 84 percent of emissions coming from on-campus power plants (burning a mix of fuel oil and natural gas), Yale surpasses the Cayman Islands and Central African Republic in total annual emissions.
Students are bringing the energy protests home. At Temple University in Philadelphia, students are rallying behind wind power, recently passing a resolution expressing willingness to pay an extra fee for it on their term bill. If the plan goes through, it will be the third-largest university purchase of clean energy, supplying 7 percent of the institution's needs, said Kim Teplitzky, a member of Students for Environmental Action at Temple.
Sarah Hammond Creighton, author of Greening the Ivory Tower, is leading the Tufts Climate Initiative. "Tufts has a longstanding commitment to action on 'greening,'" she said.
In 1999, the Tufts campus pledged to meet or exceed the Kyoto Treaty goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In 2002, the campus began work on a "solar residence hall," which will incorporate energy-efficiency and photovoltaic electricity. Tufts has also joined the Zipcar car-sharing program and purchased four zero-emission electric cars from Toyota.
Environmental groups at Columbia University have joined forces to create the C.U. Green Umbrella. The goals this year include pressuring the New York state legislature to cap carbon emissions and convincing the university to make more socially responsible investments.
"Building a solid activist community will guarantee tangible results in our campaigns," said Columbia student Anjana Sharma. "We need to make the change now to renewable energy sources, instead of doing it when we have no other choice."
Related Link
The Climate Campaign http://www.climatecampaign.org
-------- energy
Iraqi oil exports decrease by half as a result of threats
Arabic News.com
8/13/2004
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/040813/2004081315.html
Naval sources stressed the decrease in Iraqi oil exports to their half common levels on Thursday as a result of threats made by al-Mahdi army militias that resulted in keeping the main export pipelines blocked.
Three ships were seen at least at Basra port loading oil while officials said that amounts of exported oil reached 41,000 barrels per hour, representing half of average exports.
However, it was not made sure whether these loading operations are made from the reservoirs that exist in the port or from pumping operations resumed after the confirmation made by the Iraqi southern oil company had received of threats from al-Sader militias to attack oil installations in southern Iraq.
This, however, come after statements made by Salaam al-Maliki the deputy governor of Basra for administrative affairs, close to al-Sader that al-Sader's supporters are determined to convert the southern oil company in Basra into the battle field if the American forces launch their plenary attack against al-Sader city.
The Iraqi government yesterday announced blockage on one of the two main oil pipes in the southern part of the country after threats of attacks and this reduced the Iraqi exports by half.
Close monitoring of oil pipelines is maintained in the south because they constitute the only regular source for the oil exports as a result of the repeated attacks against the northern oil pipelines which links Karhouk city to Jeihan port in Turkey.
-------- OTHER
-------- environment
Evacuation of 1 Million Ordered in Florida
Flooding Feared After 2 Storms
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58893-2004Aug12.html
TAMPA, Aug. 12 -- Hurricane Charley, the second major storm to descend on Florida this week, is expected to bring 100 mph winds to the state's west coast Friday before slicing sharply north and bringing the threat of heavy rains and flooding this weekend to the Washington area and much of the Eastern Seaboard.
Charley's swirling approach prompted evacuation orders from Key West to the Tampa area, affecting more than 1 million people. The evacuations in Pinellas County, largest in the region's history, clogged bridges as residents fled barrier islands and low-lying communities in the Clearwater, St. Petersburg and Tampa areas. MacDill Air Force Base, home to the U.S. Central Command, which oversaw much of the Iraq war, and downtown Tampa will likely be mostly underwater because of the storm surge, forecasters said.
The seasonal rite of plywood fortification was in full bloom along more than 300 miles of threatened Florida coastline, from the debauched party streets of Key West to the tranquil "wrinkle cities" of the Gulf Coast's retirement zones.
Gov. Jeb Bush (R) declared a state of emergency for all of Florida, which took a dose of wind and rain on the Panhandle on Thursday from Tropical Storm Bonnie. It has been 98 years since major storms pelted the state on consecutive days.
"It does have the potential of devastating impact. . . . This is a scary, scary thing," Bush told reporters.
When Charley arrives is critical. If it hits Friday afternoon in the Tampa area, it could coincide with high tides and cause storm surges of 13 feet, the highest since Hurricane Donna in 1960, which killed 50 people in the state and caused the equivalent of $2 billion in damage. The last major storm in the area, Hurricane Elena in 1985, stalled offshore, leading to more than 300,000being evacuated.
Bonnie and Charley are forecast to take similar paths within a day of each other along much of the East Coast. That raised the possibility that ground saturation could lead to heavy flooding as Charley drenches communities already inundated by Bonnie. "We're getting one after another, so this is going to add up to a major flooding situation," said T.N. Krishnamurti, a hurricane expert at Florida State University.
In Clearwater, across the bay from Tampa, emergency officials were struggling to convince residents about the dangers of a Category 2 hurricane forecast to make a direct hit in the region. At least four times in recent years, forecasters had predicted hurricanes would make landfall there, but the storms changed course.
"There's a little bit of the 'Doubting Thomases' going on," said Jeff Pearson, a Pinellas County 911 supervisor.
The attitude was so relaxed that women were still streaming in for dye jobs and trims at Sharmaine's Salon and Day Spa on Mandalay Avenue.
A "laughing into the wind" spirit dictated as the primping and poofing went on, blissfully unabated, even as workers were pulling out plywood to protect the shop's windows. Evacuate? Not a chance, the haircutters said.
"This is my first hurricane," stylist Courtney Kriskewic, 22, said. "I just moved down from New Jersey. I'm going to hang out. I'm excited."
Down the road, at the Beach Bar, Greg Musick boasted that his business has never closed in 50 years of operation. No boards on his windows. No sandbags at his door.
"I hope I don't regret it," he said. "We've got plenty of candles."
Charley gained strength throughout Thursday, arching over the Cayman Islands before pelting Jamaica and making its way toward Havana. There were reports of long lines for supplies outside stores in Cuba's capital. One man drowned after being swept into the roiling waters off Jamaica, and about 2,000 tourists and hotel workers were airlifted from the Cuban island resort of Cayo Largo, Reuters reported.
Less than 100 miles to the north, at the southern extreme of Florida, the surest sign of trouble on the horizon was the ritual migration out of the trailer parks. Mindful that trailers are especially prone to crumpling and going airborne under heavy winds, Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley ordered residents to evacuate their trailers and live-in motor homes.
Mindful of the power of the storm -- which is expected to bring heavy rains to the island but skirt far enough to the west that the most powerful winds will be far offshore -- Weekley even tread onto sacred ground in Key West. He gently informed bartenders practiced in the art of mixing potent brews called "hurricanes" that no alcohol could be served after 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Such edicts are informed by experience. Weekley grew up on the island and does not have to work hard to remember the howling "hurricane parties" of his youth.
"They were pretty wild," he said. "We were a lot younger then -- we thought we were infallible."
--------
4 Lawmakers Ask For EPA Inquiry Hazardous Waste in Question
By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61468-2004Aug12.html
Four Democratic members of Congress have requested an investigation into the Environmental Protection Agency's writing of a hazardous-waste rule that would benefit industrial laundries, including a company controlled by the family of one of President Bush's top fundraisers.
The lawmakers said in a recent letter to agency officials that the "EPA conducted public participation in an inappropriate and one-sided manner." The letter was signed by Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Reps. Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.) and Henry A. Waxman (Calif.).
EPA officials yesterday strongly denied that undue favoritism was given to the industrial laundry industry.
The EPA rule, which is pending final approval, is a weaker version of one that had been under consideration in the Clinton administration, which would have imposed special handling restrictions on factory shop towels contaminated with solvents. Under the current proposal, shop towels would not require special containers when being taken from factories to laundries. They also would not need to be wrung out before laundering.
The Bush administration's approach is backed by lobbyists who represent the industrial-laundry industry and Cintas Corp., which is controlled by the family of Richard T. Farmer, one of America's richest men and a Bush Pioneer by virtue of having raised at least $100,000 for the 2000 campaign. Over the past 15 years, Farmer and his wife have given $3.1 million to Bush campaigns, the Republican Party and Republican candidates.
The congressional letter, sent July 20 to EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt and the agency's inspector general, Nikki Tinsley, cited a May article in The Washington Post. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviews showed that the EPA had provided industrial-laundry lobbyists with an advance copy of a portion of the proposed rule that the lobbyists edited and the agency adopted.
"Apparently, the industrial laundry industry obtained extensive access to agency decision-makers, while other stakeholders, including representatives for workers, environmental concerns and other affected industries, were neglected," the lawmakers wrote. "There is also evidence that EPA gave industrial laundries representatives, but no other interested stakeholders, the opportunity to view and comment on EPA's decision and at least some draft language for the proposal."
The lawmakers have asked for an accounting of all industry contacts on the proposed rule, and an EPA spokeswoman said the material should be compiled within a week or so. A spokesman for Tinsley said the inspector general is awaiting official EPA response before determining whether to conduct a formal review.
"We treated everybody absolutely equally," said Matt Hale, director of the EPA Office of Solid Waste. "It wasn't one-sided at all. It was the process that we always use."
-------- health
DuPont Defends Its Reporting on Teflon Ingredient
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61332-2004Aug12.html
Chemical giant DuPont Co. told the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday that it fully complied with federal reporting rules on health and environmental risks associated with a key ingredient used in making Teflon.
The company's defense of its decision not to provide all the data it gathered over 20 years on perfluorooctanoic acid, a soaplike material used in making stick-resistant surfaces and materials for products, signals the start of legal wrangling between the nation's largest chemical maker and the administration. EPA announced last month that it is seeking millions in fines from DuPont, contending that the company failed to give the government information that has raised concerns about the compound, also known as C-8 or PFOA.
"We'll fight EPA on this issue," said Stacey J. Mobley, DuPont's general counsel. "We have and will continue to manage PFOA safely."
EPA and critics such as the Environmental Working Group, a private advocacy group, have charged that DuPont failed to report important findings to the federal government, including the company's discovery in the 1980s of traces of the chemical in a pregnant worker's fetus and in municipal water supplies near the company's Parkersburg, W.Va., plant. Company officials also became concerned after they received copies of an animal study that linked C-8 to possible birth defects, though they later discounted the study as inaccurate.
In their response to EPA's complaint, DuPont said one of the key internal documents in question -- which noted elevated C-8 levels in the blood of childbearing workers and in some of their infants' blood -- did not amount to a full toxicology report.
"We're talking about one data point on one sheet of paper. It was not toxicological data," Mobley said, adding that it did not meet the "substantial risk" threshold that would have required the company to notify EPA.
Andrea V. Malinowski, another DuPont lawyer, said chemicals such as C-8 "are expected to pass through the placenta."
While at least one DuPont worker had a baby with birth defects similar to the ones identified in a 1981 animal study by 3M, the company's chief toxicologist, Robert W. Rickard, said he was sure the chemical "does not cause birth defects."
DuPont officials also said that while they determined in the 1980s that local water supplies had C-8 levels that exceeded the company's internal guidelines, it is unfair of EPA to apply that standard to reporting requirements when a federal panel determined in 2001 that levels could be 150 times as high without posing a safety risk.
EPA did not comment in detail on DuPont's filing, but spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the agency will review it and "remains committed to pursuing an appropriate resolution of DuPont's failures to report information regarding" the compound.
The company has asked for a hearing before an administrative law judge, a process it must complete before deciding whether to appeal to federal court. DuPont officials emphasized that they were cooperating with EPA on a separate risk assessment of C-8.
Tim Kropp, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, said DuPont's response reflects an unwillingness to inform the public about potential health hazards.
"This is not a company working in good faith to protect human health," Kropp said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Democracy Movement Is Stalled in Hong Kong As Legislative Election Nears,
Activists Unable to Transform Broad Support to Political Clout
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61490-2004Aug12.html
HONG KONG -- One month before a crucial vote, the hard realities of Hong Kong's complicated electoral system have forced democracy activists to scale back their hopes of translating broad public support into political power strong enough to defy the Chinese government.
Although conditions could change before the Sept. 12 legislative election, political analysts said, the likely outcome of the vote will be a continuation of the inconclusive and sometimes bitter standoff that has marked the former British colony's relations with mainland China for more than a year.
Political figures who demand expanded voting rights will retain strong representation in the Legislative Council, analysts predicted, but probably will not get the broad victory that would give them the power to challenge Beijing.
Public opinion polls have consistently found that a clear majority of the territory's 6.7 million residents endorse the demands for faster movement toward full-fledged democracy, including direct election of the chief executive and expansion of direct elections for the Legislative Council from the current 30 seats to all 60. But that endorsement has not led to the tidal wave among voters that activists hoped would produce a decisive pro-democracy majority in the council.
The main reason seems to be the Chinese government's decision on April 26 not to allow the chief executive to be picked by direct elections in 2007, as demanded by the democracy advocates, and not to allow all 60 Legislative Council seats to be filled by direct elections the following year. That decision, which provoked loud complaints in Hong Kong and muted criticism in Washington, has come to be seen by voters as a settled issue, robbing pro-democracy politicians of their main rallying cry.
"As a result, now comes the election and there's no issue," said Shiu Sin Por, who runs One Country, Two Systems, a pro-Beijing research institute housed in the towering Bank of China building overlooking Hong Kong harbor. "A lot of people were unhappy with the decision, but they can live with it."
Cici Chong, 30, a restaurant hostess who migrated here from China's Guizhou province, largely agreed with that assessment, saying she felt distant from the arguments about direct elections and how much autonomy the Chinese government should give Hong Kong.
"I couldn't care less about the election," she said. "I do not know about politics. I have not voted before, and I do not know how to vote. Whoever wins, it will be the same for me. I think it is more important for us to have an efficient government. Hong Kong will not collapse without democracy. I think the politicians should not make so much noise about it."
The hopes of Hong Kong's democracy advocates -- and the fears of Beijing's take-it-slow officials -- began to surge after an anti-government demonstration on July 1, 2003, that drew more than 500,000 people into the streets. The turnout startled Hong Kong's political establishment on both sides of the democracy argument and quickly led to an expectation that the democracy camp could perhaps win an overwhelming majority in the Legislative Council, providing a stronger platform for political demands on Beijing.
Opinion polls consistently showed that about 60 percent of the population wanted to move more swiftly toward full democracy under the "one country, two systems" arrangement put into place when Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Specifically, Hong Kong residents wanted to pick their next chief executive in 2007 and vote for the full legislature in 2008, after the coming four-year term.
Currently, the chief executive is chosen by an 800-member committee largely beholden to the Chinese government; the Legislative Council has 30 seats elected directly and 30 chosen by economic groups such as labor unions, lawyers and business people.
Public opinion on the issue has not changed. Another pro-democracy demonstration this July 1 drew hundreds of thousands of people. But after Beijing made its views clear, the sentiments voiced in polls and on the streets did not translate into support for parties and candidates identified with greater democracy.
In addition, the Chinese government has taken steps in recent months to soften its image in Hong Kong, seeking to reassure residents that its intentions are good even if progress toward direct elections seems slow.
The two-tier system by which the Legislative Council is elected also has proved to be an obstacle to focusing voter sentiment on greater democracy. Early opinion surveys show that a startling number of people do not understand the seven-year-old system.
A survey announced Monday by the University of Hong Kong's Public Opinion Program and Civic Exchange, a pro-democracy research institute, showed that 77 percent of the respondents said they did not know how the system worked. Another 10 percent said they understood, but could not explain it.
"The election sounds very complicated," said Antoine So, a 38-year-old office worker. "You are not voting for the person you like, but you vote for a ticket. I do not know how it works."
Jackie Hong, spokeswoman for the Civil Human Rights Front, which has worked on a neighborhood level to promote support for more democracy, said the multi-tier voting system was designed to dilute public opinion, giving the Chinese government more ways to exercise central control.
"It is very difficult for people to understand," she said. "That's what the Beijing government is looking for."
Within Hong Kong's five geographical constituencies, where representatives are selected by direct elections, many voters have yet to pay attention to the campaign and decide on whom to vote for, the survey showed. This means the outcome could still swing radically, said Robert Chung of the Public Opinion Program, but it also means many voters simply have not tuned in.
"We are not a very mature electorate in Hong Kong," he said.
Special correspondent K.C. Ing contributed to this report.
--------
Coalition Seeks Action on Shared Data on Arab-Americans
August 13, 2004
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/politics/13census.html
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 -Troubled by the recent public disclosure that the Census Bureau provided demographic data on Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security, a coalition of ethnic advocacy groups, privacy watchdogs and civil rights and civil liberties organizations is demanding further response from both government agencies.
A letter of complaint, drafted by the Arab American Institute Foundation and signed by more than 50 organizations and people, was sent to the Census Bureau on Thursday. The statement questioned the bureau's "judgment and discretion" in cooperating with domestic security officials and called for the bureau to announce a "plan of action" to address public concerns.
Representatives from the group plan to meet on Friday with Daniel W. Sutherland, the officer for civil rights and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, and Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, the division of the department that made the original requests for data.
In late July, results of a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group based in Washington, showed that the Census Bureau had provided Customs and Border Protection with two specially tabulated population tables on Arab-Americans. One included detailed breakdowns of people of various Arab ethnicities in specific ZIP codes.
The data sharing is legal, and the various statistics used to compile the specialized tables are publicly available on the Census Bureau's Web site. But disclosure of the cooperation has generated widespread concern from groups that say the Census Bureau should not provide such assistance to law enforcement agencies.
"Based on the number of organizations who have joined us on this, there is a serious sense of betrayal from many communities," said Helen Hatab Samhan, executive director of the Arab American Institute Foundation.
Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights said, "The Census Bureau has unwittingly played into the worst fears of all minority communities that they are being watched, cataloged and tracked for improper purposes."
Neither C. Louis Kincannon, director of the Census Bureau, nor Hermann Habermann, the bureau's deputy director, could be reached for comment. Jefferson D. Taylor, a spokesman for the agency, emphasized that the bureau had done nothing illegal and that it had simply reformatted aggregate public data.
But Mr. Taylor said the bureau was taking public concerns very seriously. "The Census Bureau is concerned if any American is not confident about our procedures and policies," he said. "There is an openness to address these issues and look at them from all perspectives."
Among the actions under consideration, Mr. Taylor said, is a special meeting on privacy and confidentiality issues during the annual meeting of the Decennial Census Advisory Committee in October.
Mr. Bonner, the customs commissioner, said in a telephone interview that he had already made policy changes in the Customs and Border Protection division in response to public concerns. He said that any request to the Census Bureau for "sensitive information, for instance information about racial or ethnic ancestry," would now have to be approved at the assistant commissioner level and would have to be shown to be "reasonably related" to the division's mission.
Mr. Bonner repeated his department's earlier explanation that the data request was made to help the agency determine in which airports to post signs and pamphlets in Arabic and said that similar data was sought on other ethnic groups.
Kareem W. Shora, director of legal policy for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, who will represent the coalition in the meeting with domestic security officials, said that the explanation did not support the gathering of such detailed information and that so far he had received no evidence of similar requests to the Census Bureau about other ethnic groups.
"Obviously, we will give them the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to let us know their side of the story," Mr. Shora said. "But so far the explanations have not been satisfactory."
Mr. Shora said his and other groups were considering requesting Congressional hearings to clarify how data sharing between census and law enforcement agencies should be handled in the future.
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PUBLIC LIVES
Protecting the Right Not to Remain Silent
August 13, 2004
By LYNDA RICHARDSON
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/13/nyregion/13profile.html
SIMONE LEVINE looks so serious in the shabby, low-ceilinged offices of the National Lawyers Guild in Midtown Manhattan. And why wouldn't she? Ms. Levine is a lead organizer of the guild's campaign to protect the rights of protesters during the Republican National Convention later this month.
She has plenty on her mind. Officials warn there could be as many as 1,000 convention-related arrests a day. And protesters are pushing to hold a large demonstration in Central Park, despite opposition from the city, which wants them to rally along the West Side Highway. Just imagine Aug. 29, the day before the convention, and the specter of 250,000 people marching past Madison Square Garden, the convention site, with no set destination.
"It's a lot of stress," says Ms. Levine, who is 29 and has a day job as a criminal defense lawyer for the financially challenged Legal Aid Society in Manhattan. She juggles 115 cases of indigent defendants. At the guild, she volunteers her time as an organizer of its Mass Defense Committee in New York. The other afternoon, just in from court, she looked tired as she sat at a conference table. She took out a legal pad to jot notes, still in cautious lawyer mode.
"Whenever you talk about 1,000 arrests going through the system, you can only imagine trying to get that number of attorneys to represent these people," she said. "It takes a huge amount of energy to plan effectively, so demonstrators won't have their rights trampled."
Ms. Levine, a slender woman with long, wavy hair and an intense, wary gaze, has increasingly become a public face of the guild, a left-leaning group that was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association's political conservatism and its policy at the time of excluding blacks. It has 6,000 members nationwide.
For the last year, Ms. Levine has been immersed in planning the logistics of sending out troops of lawyers and legal observers during the convention. She has testified three times at public forums in City Hall, denouncing police tactics at large demonstrations like the one in February 2003 against the war in Iraq. She also represented protesters during the World Economic Forum in Manhattan in 2002.
So what about the persistent buzz among protesters that, for the first time in recent years, some demonstrators may have to pay a nominal fee to be represented after arrests? Ms. Levine confirms that this may happen, but says fewer than 10 percent of lawyers are likely to charge clients, and only because they, too, have bills to pay. So far, 120 lawyers have volunteered their services.
Is the guild concerned about taking heat for the plan of some lawyers to charge? "The majority of attorneys are still going to be not charging at all," she says firmly. "We're not worried about being criticized. We're attorneys. We're used to being criticized."
During the convention, Ms. Levine says, the guild will represent demonstrators wherever sporadic protests and arrests happen.
The guild has monitored the interaction between the police and protesters since the 1968 antiwar protests at Columbia University.
Ms. Levine picks up a bright-green baseball cap. It is the one guild lawyers will wear as they patrol demonstrations during the convention. She says the guild will also deploy 250 trained legal observers in the hats, some with video and still cameras to document arrests and police activity.
She will not be wearing the hat. "That green is not my color," she jokes, lightening up at last. She says she instead will be dispatching lawyers to various sites from the guild office.
She does not foresee a shortage of lawyers to represent demonstrators. She says lawyers have been galvanized by law enforcement authorities' saying there might be as many as 1,000 arrests a day. "For police to radicalize attorneys, it's quite a feat," she says.
Ms. Levine's upbringing was anything but radical. The daughter of a social worker and a consultant who helps failing businesses, she grew up in the upper-middle-class community of Ridgefield, Conn. But as a teenager, she says, she was so moved by the sharp racial and economic inequities in cities like New Haven and Bridgeport, Conn., that she became a community organizer against racism and police brutality.
SHE studied political science at McGill University in Montreal, then headed to East Asia, where she witnessed crackdowns on student dissidents in South Korea and invasions of Burmese military troops into refugee camps along the border of Thailand and Myanmar, formerly Burma. She worked with nonprofit groups to lobby governments to change their human rights policies. Then she began to wonder why she was overseas.
"There was a point I felt my energy would be better directed if I started working on human rights issues in my own country," she says.
Ms. Levine enrolled in the University of Connecticut School of Law, and started the guild's mass defense chapter there.
These days, she says, she is working from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. to prepare for the convention. But she does have a life outside work. She lives in a loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with eight other roommates, writers and artists, and she has a boyfriend, another Legal Aid lawyer, whom she declines to discuss.
It also turns out that she has a secret weapon to deal with stress. She is an amateur boxer, practicing four times a week with trainers at a gym. "It's so that I can wake up every morning and keep fighting for my clients."
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State of Emergency in Maldives, Protest Broken Up
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-maldives.html
COLOMBO (Reuters) - The Maldives declared a state of emergency Friday after using tear gas and truncheons to break up thousands of demonstrators making an unprecedented call for political reform in the tiny resort island nation.
Government spokesman Ahmed Shaheed said paramilitary forces moved in on the crowds after they torched a government building and tried to charge a police station and that minimal force was used, but activists said the break-up was violent.
``It's over. The NSS (National Security Service) came and chased the people using tear gas and riot gear,'' said a resident of the capital Male who did not want to be identified.
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Asia's longest-serving leader, announced reforms in June that sought to address his country's poor human rights record just months after a riot threw a spotlight on simmering unrest in the nation famed for its palm-fringed beach resorts.
But activists said Gayoom had yet to make good on promises of democratization and took to a square in the capital, Male, on Thursday night to demand the release of five reformists detained in the past week.
During the night the crowd swelled to several thousand, and although the five were released, the crowd refused to disperse through most of Friday until government forces moved in to break up the demonstrators.
A report on the dissident Maldives Culture Web site said police had beaten protesters and arrested a number of reformists, and that police agents in the crowd had incited the violence as an excuse the break up the demonstration.
Shaheed said police arrested about 90 people.
``We were not looking at activists, we are looking at those inciting violence ... A minimal of force was used. I understand only one person was seriously injured and about three to four police have been injured,'' he said.
REFORM PLEDGES
Ibrahim Ismail, a reformist member of parliament, said the protesters wanted to see some sign Gayoom was sincere about his reform pledges in the tourism-dependent country of 300,000, a string of tiny islands dotted through the Indian Ocean and often depicted as paradise isles.
He said in response to Gayoom's calls for reform he had started a series of public meetings in July but that the government had recently cracked down on the gatherings, refusing to provide venues and in the past week detaining reformists.
``This is not an incident which just happened in a single day. It has been building up,'' Ismail told Reuters.
The Friends of Maldives, a group concerned with human rights abuses in the country, said Ismail was one of five members of a special assembly called last month to discuss changing the constitution who were jailed in the crackdown.
The assembly broke up soon after it began over a dispute about how to elect a speaker. It was due to reconvene Monday but Shaheed said that was now in question.
``We hope to lift the emergency as soon as we find out which elements were trying to subvert the political process and incite violence,'' he said, adding the constitutional meeting would likely be on hold until then.
Gayoom's proposed amendments include allowing the formation of political parties, changing the way the president is elected, setting up a human rights commission and giving the judiciary more independence.
But both Maldives Culture and Friends of Maldives said several members of the constitutional assembly were among those arrested.
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New York City Sued for Blocking Civil Rights Rally
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-campaign-lawsuit.html
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Arab American organization and an anti-war group said on Friday they have sued New York City for blocking a huge civil rights rally in Central Park just before the start of the Republican National Convention.
The National Council of Arab Americans and the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) said the city's action violated their free speech rights by barring the rally planned for Aug. 28.
The groups allege the city is wrongfully denying access to those who oppose the war in Iraq and Bush Administration policies. The Arab-American group is also protesting what it says is the Bush administration's use ``of September 11 as a pretext to implement a system of unconstitutional racial and religious profiling'' of Muslims.
The suit follows the city's rejection on Tuesday of a new bid by United for Peace and Justice, an umbrella organization of 800 anti-war groups, to stage the biggest rally of the Republican convention in Central Park.
Authorities first denied a permit for the rally in May out of security concerns and fear of damage to a recently installed irrigation system.
The Republican convention, to be held under strict security amid a series of government warnings of a possible terrorist attack, runs from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 to nominate President Bush for a second term in the White House in the November race against Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry.
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Thousands of Iranians Protest U.S. Actions in Iraq
August 13, 2004
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq-iran-protest.html
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Thousands of Iranians marched through the streets of Tehran on Friday to protest U.S. military actions in Iraq after a senior hardline cleric praised the resistance of Shi'ite Muslim rebels in Najaf.
Chanting ``Death to America'' and burning U.S. flags, the protesters flooded streets in central Tehran carrying banners proclaiming: ``Death to the occupiers'' and ``American democracy - massacre of innocent people.'' Similar state-sponsored rallies were planned across the country.
Shi'ite Muslim Iran has consistently called for U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq and expressed outrage at the presence of multinational forces in holy Shi'ite cities Najaf and Kerbala.
``They (Americans) want to fully eliminate Islamic groups from the Iraqi scene and give power to a laic group who are U.S. agents,'' Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at Friday Prayers in Tehran before the protest march started.
``I must appreciate those who are resisting around the holy shrine (of Imam Ali in Najaf) against the bloodthirsty wolves,'' he said.
Jannati, who heads a powerful hardline constitutional watchdog, criticized Iraq's interim government for ``giving the green light'' to the U.S. military to carry out raids against Shi'ite fighters in Najaf.
But he made no direct reference to rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al Sadr whose supporters have been fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Najaf for more than a week.
``AMERICANS ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS''
A statement read by the protesters expressed ``hatred for the occupiers' presence in Iraq and our support for the innocent Iraqi nation.''
``Iran condemns the international community's silence on the crimes being committed by occupying forces in Iraq,'' it said.
One protester, Mohammad, 53, said it was the duty of Muslims to confront the U.S. military in Iraq.
``America attacked Iraq and looted the country and now the Iraqis want to defend their rights,'' he said. ``The Americans call them terrorists, but the Iraqi people are not terrorists, they (the Americans) are the real terrorists.''
Scores of riot police surrounded the nearby British embassy where many of the marchers were expected to congregate later.
In the absence of a U.S. embassy in Iran since Washington broke diplomatic ties in 1980, the British mission has borne the brunt of protests against U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
Jannati mocked accusations by some U.S. and Iraqi officials that Tehran has been arming Shi'ite rebels in Iraq.
``This is just another pretext against Iran. Could it be any more amusing than this?'' he said.
Relations between the two neighbors, who fought a bitter 1980-1988 war, have been strained by the charges of Iranian meddling and by the arrest of several Iranian journalists and businessmen and the kidnapping of an Iranian diplomat in Iraq in recent weeks.
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